When we were theorizing about a gifted car plant, the example may have vaguely sounded like Toyota’s NUMMI plant, that was, for practical purposes, given to Tesla in 2010 in exchange for shares. A year later, Toyota opened its first simple, slim and flexible plant as a pilot north of Sendai, Japan, and a few years thereafter, Toyota sold its shares in Tesla. If the relationship would have lasted a little longer, and if Elon Musk’s hubris would have been a little less pronounced, Tesla could have learned something.
Before landing in production hell, and pitching a tent to make his Model 3, Musk promised that he would out-Toyota Toyota when it comes to lean manufacturing. He had a catchy name for Tesla’s non-existent miracle plant. He called it the Alien Dreadnought. I ask Akahane what Toyota calls its super-flexible line.
“We don’t really have a name for it,” Akahane says, and he doesn’t seem to think it needs one.