It takes 30 hours for VW to build an ID.4 vs 10 for Tesla to build a Model 3. That won't be an easy gap to close.
Heck, "throw more servers at it" has been an accepted practice. Who cares if it takes 30 hours as opposed to 10 if you can have 3x the number of cars under construction at one time.
Additionally a plant that takes 30 hours per car is typically going to have less output than a plant that takes 10 hours per car. Typically each minute during production the car is taking up space, being worked on humans or robots, etc. Additionally efficiencies favor shorter pipelines. Generally a 10 hour pipeline is physically shorter than a 30 hour. Parts, staff, troubleshooting etc is easier on a smaller pipeline. Additionally having each car bridge 4 working shifts for the workers has overheads of it's own compared to 1-2 shifts. Doubly so if you are trying to iterate quickly.
Imagine an assembly line moving at 0.5 mph, for the same physical foot print you could have 3 lines that are 10 hours each instead of a single line that runs for 30 hours. Now imagine there's a issue that shuts down a line for an hour, it's better if it's 1/3rd of your capacity down instead of 100%. If you try an improvement, it's better to put 1/3rd of your production capacity at risk instead of 100%.
Also, the whole claim would really need a citation, and careful parsing of the methodology. 3x difference in a mature industry like car assembly is very unlikely, and requires a very strong proof to back that statement up.
The 10% difference pays the next factory.
Some highlights: front 3rd of chassis is one piece, rear 3rd of chassis is one piece, the glass roof is a huge piece and before that's installed things can be installed by robot (steering wheel, dash, seats, etc). Many things are radically simpler, like the interior, dash is basically a aluminum bar the width of the car with an arm for a 15" monitor. Even the ventilation system is simple, few parts, and easy to install. Most cars spend quite a bit of complexity for gauges, displays, buttons, vent controls, temp control, fan control, fans, emergency brake, air valves, etc.
Monroe on youtube (engineer with significant experience, used to work at Ford) took apart an early model 3 and wasn't impressed, didn't recommend it, and called out many details that were expensive, labor intensive, etc. He did a new model 3 and model Y and left quite impressed. Many innovative changes to make things easier to produce, cheap to reduce, reduced parts counts, etc. Monroe claims tesla is iterating their production faster than anyone else he's looked at, and he's looked at a very wide variety of cars (and other products for that matter).
Monroe also reviewed the VW ID.4 and left quite under impressed. Ironically he didn't expect much from the Ford Mach E, but was very pleasantly surprised to see innovative engineering, impressive design, and overall was quite impressed. Although he was horrified by the complexity of the cooling system and has serious doubts about it's long term reliability.
Meanwhile, I assume that space is the cheapest part of the car factory, dwarfed by robotics.
I mean, the VW is cheaper than the 3, so that implies they aren't spending that much more.
https://jalopnik.com/watch-a-pro-detailer-point-out-all-the-...
But let’s assume that’s true. Tesla has been building electric cars for how long? VW is basically just getting started for real (modular platform for all their cars unlike the eGolf), and still makes ICE cars as well.
It’s never a good idea to discount your competitors. I doubt Elon does even if comments on HN do.
Each job is a dependency for the next job. A long build time either indicates that individual assembly technicians have too many steps in their job (it is much harder to remember 25 steps than 5 steps) or that the plant is assembling more parts locally than their competitors. If you have an engine shipped in complete from your supplier that is less time your plant spends assembling a dependency at build time.
Electric cars should in theory assemble much faster than gas. Fewer parts. Less complexity in the mechanical assembly of the drive train.
When corporate overlords dictate that an assembly plant meet production numbers that it isn’t capable of accurately producing they shell out complete garbage. Inspection lines flag errors that managers ship with disregard in order to meet numbers. Every time.