The point is Musk is looking increasingly like a joke, which is not what you really want in a massive company that is hemorrhaging money and could actually collapse if Model 3 demand doesn't pick up.
The latter is becoming somewhat more debatable lately though given Musk's somewhat erratic behavior I think. Personally as an investor, Musk's behavior looks uncomfortably to me like how Enron's CEO was behaving near the end (though I would object to any other serious comparisons between Enron and Tesla as businesses).
I never particularly liked him as a person, but I like him because of what he actually does.
Tesla had all sorts of tolerance problems early and moving to hand assembly in a tent won't improve it.
I remember hearing this a while back but thought maybe some of the delays in ramping up production might have been due to switching to an automated/robotic process. Is this not the case?
Hand labor, working extra shifts, is how they hit their mark.
They continue to use it while they address the automation challenges
The Model 3 is not produce with 'hand labor', in fact pretty much every single thing you said is baseless crap.
They did take out robots of some parts of the assembly line, but substantial parts of the overall production is still highly automated, more so then many manufacturers.
The tend actually contains a new assembly line where they use many of the robots they took out to build a new line.
One line is a bit more labor then the other and they are experimenting.
From pretty much later reviews and the companies own statements you can see that the fit and finish has massively improved and the quality of the mass produced car is competitive.
Given their production numbers are now quite stable at a high level and continue to grow I see absolutely reason for most of your assumptions.
Producing higher value models in the initial production is highly sensible because higher margins at low production give you better cash flow. Essentially this means they can produce a profit on every car, rather then starting with per car loses and then moving to profits.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-model-...
Is this UBS analysis more reliable than the one indicating a 30% margin for the base model?
As for him looking like a joke, you just list more blatant lies.
The Tesla Model 3 is the most pre-order car in history and they have insane amounts of demand. It will take 1-2 years to do the orders they already have.
As for hemorrhaging money, guess what, most of that was investment and now the Tesla Model 3 is rolling in quite a bit of money, and with very little further investment, they can produce a highly profitable car for the next 2-3 years.