8 ms·

There is no way on god's earth that Tesla can ramp up production like that. I suspect the first cars that they sell will roll off the VP tools and not off the

by Munkum 9y ago

There is no way on god's earth that Tesla can ramp up production like that. I suspect the first cars that they sell will roll off the VP tools and not off the main lines anyway. With a lack of product maturation the quality of the first cars will be appalling too. I'd bet that the guys at the coal face are wanting to kill their PR people right now for making promises that they know will get broken. Disclosure: work in the automotive industry designing high volume production lines and planning vehicle launches.

stupidcar 9y ago
I'm reminded a little of how the Blackberry board supposedly watched the iPhone announcement and insisted it was fake, as there was "no way" someone could build and profitably sell a phone with that feature-set. Tesla might not do what they're promising. Hell, they probably won't do what they're promising. But pronouncing something impossible on the basis of industry experience can be a dangerous thing. Some things are considered unthinkable and impossible only until someone finds a way to do them, after which they are retroactively declared obvious and inevitable. Certainly, Tesla seem to have the right ideas: Electric cars are inherently simpler, mechanically speaking, than gasoline cars, and they're leveraging this further by reducing the options and variability on the Model 3 to the absolute minimum. They also hired Peter Hochholdinger from Audi as VP of production, and he is pursuing a pretty extreme form of Industry 4.0[1] — with everything in their production process being instrumented, automated and designed for easy replacement.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0 [2] http://www.mljournal-digital.com/meleadershipjournal/october_2016?pg=1#pg1 http://www.mljournal-digital.com/meleadershipjournal/october...
- izacus 9y ago
  I'm not sure how realities of production get beaten by "ideas". Yes, Tesla has excellent design and approach. That won't help them magically build in volume. Or quality - even very expensive Model S cars aren't really a paragon of build quality in their class. Steve Jobs didn't promise production of 300mil iPhones in a year when they announced it.
  - dwighttk 9y ago
    I don't know if you've heard of this little thing called The Law of Accelerating Returns. It's the law.
    - calafrax 9y ago
      Wow, I finally understand the underlying theory of people who invest in the stock market. Thanks. I will be rich now.
      - sctb 9y ago
        Please stop posting unsubstantively like this on HN.
    - dwighttk 9y ago
      Ok, I get it, do not mock The Law of Accelerating Returns.
- Munkum 9y ago
  The body on an electric car is basically no different to an ICE car. The floor is flatter and thicker to accommodate the battery pack and no need for a tunnel to accommodate the drive train, but other than that they're about the same. Tesla will almost certainly be using a combination of materials on the model 3; mild steels (cheap and cheerful, easy to press), aluminium (lightweight) and boron steels (strong). To join these materials you need a variety of techniques including resistance spot welding, aluminium RSW (altogether more difficult than steel because of the low melting point and high conductivity, and the fact that weld spatter sticks to the tip of the gun), riveting (for steel-Al joints), structural adhesives, flow drill screws, laser welds etc. All of these processes take serious time to calibrate and get right, and some are not all that robust (by high volume standards). There are many quality loops with a vehicle launch. The tooling needs to be proven out. Tools get shimmed relentlessly to make up for panel variations - panel quality can vary from batch to batch within a press run. This is especially true for mixed material cars. Believe me, these are not easy problems to solve and nothing I've seen and heard out of Tesla makes me think they've addressed any of these issues.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    What are you, an expert? We don't need no fracking experts here! How dare you challenge Tesla's PR announcements?? /s
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    Is it possible that Musk has solved the problem, much like he or his employees have solved countless other tech problems, but Musk also knows what makes a sexy headline. Spot welding is hard to sell as flashy and new. If you can't do it on mars, it might not make good headlines.
    - csours 9y ago
      Spot welding isn't hard, and wasn't claimed to be hard. Mixed Materials welding and joining is Hard (steel + aluminium/mild steel + high strength steel/ etc).
      - 9y ago
- nradov 9y ago
  If electric cars are so simple, why is the Tesla Model S so unreliable? https://www.truedelta.com/Tesla-Model-S/reliability-1095 https://www.truedelta.com/Tesla-Model-S/reliability-1095 Conversely, the Toyota Prius is one of the most reliable cars. Yet it is mechanically complex with both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, plus a CVT. So clearly engineering skill and manufacturing quality are bigger factors than the drive train.
  - bendev_test 9y ago
    Actually the Prius is less mechanically complex than a normal ICE-Car. The planetary gear is really simple and you don't need parts which are prone to wear like a high torque clutch or a complex gearbox. It is very reliable not despite but because of it's unique powertrain concept.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    How unreliable are ICEs these days - maybe its just me, but I've never had an engine problem in nearly 20 years of owning cars. Electrical problems, suspension problems, drainage problems - had all of them but never had a problem with the actual engine.
    - Siecje 9y ago
      What is a drainage problem?
      - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
        It's when you realize your OEM sunroof leaks just like an '70s aftermarket sunroof but there is a drain that keeps you from noticing. Or there was a drain, now it's full of dirt and debris and doesn't drain very well.
      - rubidium 9y ago
        Window and trunk leaks
      - arethuza 9y ago
- xorcist 9y ago
  > insisted it was fake, as there was "no way" someone could build and profitably sell a phone with that feature-set A little context here might be good. The supposed disbelief of Blackberry was their carrier deal, as they themselves were not _allowed_ to sell phones with that feature set. It wasn't unthinkable to build it engineering-wise. (It was expensive yet with underwhelming features, a 2G phone with no apps at a time when even feature phones had 3G and apps for almost five years.) It was unthinkable business-wise. Those rules are easier to play hard and fast with. That there is unfounded criticism doesn't mean all criticisms is unfounded.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    The carrier deal was also a surprise to them, but if you believe this anonymous former RIM engineer they also didn't think it was possible to do what the iPhone did and still have acceptable battery life: "RIM was even in denial the day after the iPhone was announced with all hands meets claiming all manner of weird things about iPhone: it couldn't do what they were demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor, it must have terrible battery life, etc. Imagine their surprise when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it. It was ridiculous, it was brilliant." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044389
    - sah2ed 9y ago
      The iPhone is now a 10 year old device still selling like crazy. Thanks for the link.
- scott_karana 9y ago
  Even just using Tesla's numbers, it's unlikely they can ramp up production. They currently produce ~25K Model X and S per quarter, and they're having supply issues with battery packs. (see the other, recent thread on them) How in the world are they going to be producing 20K Model 3s by December, without cannibalizing their more profitable existing sales, and judging by their own previous growth rate and demand problems?
  - maratd 9y ago
    > they're having supply issues with battery packs. They are building a huge factory for making battery packs in Nevada. That's already operational and will be more so by December. I imagine that's part of the solution.
Kluny 9y ago
Commenting to remind myself to check back later and see if you were right!
- falcolas 9y ago
  By clicking on thr time string in the post, you will get to a page which will let you favorite the actual comment, without your own comment.
taneq 9y ago
> I suspect the first cars that they sell will roll off the VP tools and not off the main lines anyway. There a story a couple of months ago about the fact that they've saved a lot of time by going straight to the main production lines rather than building a testing line first? Is this a good plan? Time will tell but I'm sure glad I'm not involved. :S Sources: http://www.newsweek.com/tesla-skips-traditional-manufacturing-steps-model-3-588503 http://www.newsweek.com/tesla-skips-traditional-manufacturin... http://autoweek.com/article/green-cars/tesla-wont-test-model-3s-assembly-line-starting-full-scale-production http://autoweek.com/article/green-cars/tesla-wont-test-model... Edit: From the second link: > Let's recap: Tesla's flawed Model X launch was partly due to not taking the time to adjust for problems identified in the soft-tooling phase of pre-production. The lesson Tesla learned? Don't bother with soft tooling for the Model 3. Wow. Is it just me or does that sound like "The unit tests kept failing and made us miss a deadline. No more unit tests!"
- Munkum 9y ago
  No, this is not a good plan at all, it's incredibly risky. To get the car all road legal it needs to be crash tested - that is usually what the pre-volume builds are used for. If they fail (and they sometimes do, because you can't do a finite element analysis on an assembly as complex as a car in the variety of scenarios that you would crash test it) then you need to reengineer the car. This usually means panel gauge increases, sometimes it means additional reinforcement parts (boron steel inserts and brackets a lot of the time). If that happens the production could be delayed by months as they'd need to find a way to feed those parts to the line and modify any tooling that might be effected.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    So these all sound like very true and good things. No reason to doubt there is a reason current big auto does it the way they do. On the other hand, Musk hasn't been one to just say stuff and totally fail. By and large he is getting what he says he is getting, and on a close to reasonable time frame. If we stuck to what big auto said, there would be no autopilot, and EVs would still be a toy with a tiny range. I have at this point little reason to doubt that they will pull this off. Clearly making cars is a solved problem, millions are made every year. It SEEMS like Musk hires people that know their stuff. So I am going long on Tesla, and short on existing big auto. Time will tell what happens ;)
calafrax 9y ago
I would have more confidence in this announcement if it was not made a day before Tesla announced that they are experiencing falling demand for their existing line and barely hit the bottom of their production forecast. Their initial "hand over" is to employees, not real customers, so it is really just internal testing and does not indicate anything about when actual deliveries will begin. Hitting delivery deadlines is actually worse than missing them if you are hitting them by pushing an unfinished product which is losing tons of money per unit due to inefficient production processes and creating huge future liabilities for warranty repairs, recalls, and negligence lawsuits if someone gets injured by a defect. There is a reason why Goldman is revising their price target down on this news and their target is half the current stock price.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Those employees are still paying their own personal money for the car. They're as much "real customers" as you or me.
  - davewritescode 9y ago
    I suspect they're not paying what customers will pay and they're likely to be leases since they're effectively pre-production models and you'd have to be a big knucklehead to bet on the resale value of a pre-production Model 3.
    - mjamesaustin 9y ago
      Tesla offers zero employee discounts on their cars. Even Musk pays full price, on principle. https://www.quora.com/Do-Tesla-employees-get-a-discount-on-Tesla-cars https://www.quora.com/Do-Tesla-employees-get-a-discount-on-T...
    - greedo 9y ago
      I imagine the value of a pre-production Model 3 will be quite good in ten years. Look at what the iPhone (original release) is worth. Or perhaps a Ford Model T?
- 9y ago
stevenj 9y ago
What do you think is a realistic goal for its production (numbers wise) of the Model 3 by the end of the year?
SEJeff 9y ago
People said the exact same thing when Musk announced SpaceX. Then they said no big deal after the Falcon 1 worked, and laughed when Musk said he was going to land the Falcon 9 on a barge in the ocean, then he did. Next they said there was simply no way SpaceX would be able to refly a used first stage, which they've now successfully done twice. History of his accomplishments show us "industry knowledge" doesn't really matter as he's trying to do things explicitly different than the rest of the industry.
- JshWright 9y ago
  What's more, a lot of the materials science and metalworking "lessons learned" (particularly when it comes to working with aluminum) at SpaceX are available to Tesla.
  - Munkum 9y ago
    Really not the case. Space X have built, um, not many rockets. Tesla are planning to churn out hundreds of thousands of cars. The key isn't being able to do it (as someone else said joining metals is a solved problem), it's being able to do it with high quality and in a reliable way. Do you think Space X joining techniques are optimised for making 100k joints in a factory environment?
    - SEJeff 9y ago
      You are entirely incorrect. SpaceX perfected friction stir welding for large sheets of aluminum for their fuel tanks. That tech was transferred that technology entirely to Tesla, who happen to make cars from large pieces of aluminum (Model X and S). https://electrek.co/2015/05/24/spacex-transferred-novel-welding-techniques-and-equipment-to-tesla-motors/ https://electrek.co/2015/05/24/spacex-transferred-novel-weld...
      - Munkum 9y ago
        There is no way that they are using friction stir welding in a high volume line. It's a very slow process, visually it's horrible (big scar along the joint) and, though I've no experience with it I would have thought that pushing a spinning piece of metal at high temperatures through two thin abutting pressings would be highly unreliable.
Diederich 9y ago
Disclosure: I've never worked in or around the automotive industry. The amount of focus and effort Tesla has put toward the tech in the Model 3 pales in comparison to the amount they have put toward factory automation. Musk has said as much in multiple interviews. He's talked about how it's 10x harder to 'build the machines that build the machines'. See also their acquisition of Grohmann Engineering. Having said all that, we will have to wait and see. One thing I do know is that Musk's ventures have a long history of surprising the status quo.
wand3r 9y ago
There is no way anyone could ever profitably produce a rapidly reusable rocket. No one can make an online bank. No one can do solar profitably. No one can replace the yellow pages (Zip2 got passed on when an investor threw the yellow pages on the table). No one can make an electric vehicle that doesn't suck... You might not be wrong, but the shorts get squeezed Everytime someone says this. I wouldn't bet against Tesla and the market is more than tolerant of these delays
devopsproject 9y ago
There was an article recently where some higher ups talked about the engineering. They described focusing work on the factory itself instead of the product with the idea being that every time you improve or fix the factory, you gain many upsides in the final output. Can't find the article but I was an interesting read
- Qub3d 9y ago
  (Warning: biased source) Electrek has an article quoting it. Elon was describing the idea of designing the "Machine that builds the Machines"[0]. “We realized that the true problem, the true difficulty, and where the greatest potential is – is building the machine that makes the machine. In other words, it’s building the factory. I’m really thinking of the factory like a product.” [0]:https://electrek.co/2016/06/01/elon-musk-machines-making-machines-rant-about-tesla-manufacturing/ https://electrek.co/2016/06/01/elon-musk-machines-making-mac...
Aron 9y ago
> There is no way on god's earth that Tesla can ramp up production like that I'm not clear what like that you are referring to, or what would be a more reasonable plan.
fosco 9y ago
This is not gods earth. I would be interested in how they solved these challenges but you come off being someone who just points out problems which is not as helpful as someone who thinks of solutions, also not as abrasive either.

by Munkum 9y ago

stupidcar 9y ago

I'm reminded a little of how the Blackberry board supposedly watched the iPhone announcement and insisted it was fake, as there was "no way" someone could build and profitably sell a phone with that feature-set. Tesla might not do what they're promising. Hell, they probably won't do what they're promising. But pronouncing something impossible on the basis of industry experience can be a dangerous thing. Some things are considered unthinkable and impossible only until someone finds a way to do them, after which they are retroactively declared obvious and inevitable. Certainly, Tesla seem to have the right ideas: Electric cars are inherently simpler, mechanically speaking, than gasoline cars, and they're leveraging this further by reducing the options and variability on the Model 3 to the absolute minimum. They also hired Peter Hochholdinger from Audi as VP of production, and he is pursuing a pretty extreme form of Industry 4.0[1] — with everything in their production process being instrumented, automated and designed for easy replacement.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0 [2] http://www.mljournal-digital.com/meleadershipjournal/october_2016?pg=1#pg1 http://www.mljournal-digital.com/meleadershipjournal/october...

izacus 9y ago
I'm not sure how realities of production get beaten by "ideas". Yes, Tesla has excellent design and approach. That won't help them magically build in volume. Or quality - even very expensive Model S cars aren't really a paragon of build quality in their class. Steve Jobs didn't promise production of 300mil iPhones in a year when they announced it.
- dwighttk 9y ago
  I don't know if you've heard of this little thing called The Law of Accelerating Returns. It's the law.
  - calafrax 9y ago
    Wow, I finally understand the underlying theory of people who invest in the stock market. Thanks. I will be rich now.
    - sctb 9y ago
      Please stop posting unsubstantively like this on HN.
  - dwighttk 9y ago
    Ok, I get it, do not mock The Law of Accelerating Returns.
Munkum 9y ago
The body on an electric car is basically no different to an ICE car. The floor is flatter and thicker to accommodate the battery pack and no need for a tunnel to accommodate the drive train, but other than that they're about the same. Tesla will almost certainly be using a combination of materials on the model 3; mild steels (cheap and cheerful, easy to press), aluminium (lightweight) and boron steels (strong). To join these materials you need a variety of techniques including resistance spot welding, aluminium RSW (altogether more difficult than steel because of the low melting point and high conductivity, and the fact that weld spatter sticks to the tip of the gun), riveting (for steel-Al joints), structural adhesives, flow drill screws, laser welds etc. All of these processes take serious time to calibrate and get right, and some are not all that robust (by high volume standards). There are many quality loops with a vehicle launch. The tooling needs to be proven out. Tools get shimmed relentlessly to make up for panel variations - panel quality can vary from batch to batch within a press run. This is especially true for mixed material cars. Believe me, these are not easy problems to solve and nothing I've seen and heard out of Tesla makes me think they've addressed any of these issues.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  What are you, an expert? We don't need no fracking experts here! How dare you challenge Tesla's PR announcements?? /s
- sqeaky 9y ago
  Is it possible that Musk has solved the problem, much like he or his employees have solved countless other tech problems, but Musk also knows what makes a sexy headline. Spot welding is hard to sell as flashy and new. If you can't do it on mars, it might not make good headlines.
  - csours 9y ago
    Spot welding isn't hard, and wasn't claimed to be hard. Mixed Materials welding and joining is Hard (steel + aluminium/mild steel + high strength steel/ etc).
    - 9y ago
nradov 9y ago
If electric cars are so simple, why is the Tesla Model S so unreliable? https://www.truedelta.com/Tesla-Model-S/reliability-1095 https://www.truedelta.com/Tesla-Model-S/reliability-1095 Conversely, the Toyota Prius is one of the most reliable cars. Yet it is mechanically complex with both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, plus a CVT. So clearly engineering skill and manufacturing quality are bigger factors than the drive train.
- bendev_test 9y ago
  Actually the Prius is less mechanically complex than a normal ICE-Car. The planetary gear is really simple and you don't need parts which are prone to wear like a high torque clutch or a complex gearbox. It is very reliable not despite but because of it's unique powertrain concept.
- arethuza 9y ago
  How unreliable are ICEs these days - maybe its just me, but I've never had an engine problem in nearly 20 years of owning cars. Electrical problems, suspension problems, drainage problems - had all of them but never had a problem with the actual engine.
  - Siecje 9y ago
    What is a drainage problem?
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      It's when you realize your OEM sunroof leaks just like an '70s aftermarket sunroof but there is a drain that keeps you from noticing. Or there was a drain, now it's full of dirt and debris and doesn't drain very well.
    - rubidium 9y ago
      Window and trunk leaks
    - arethuza 9y ago
xorcist 9y ago
> insisted it was fake, as there was "no way" someone could build and profitably sell a phone with that feature-set A little context here might be good. The supposed disbelief of Blackberry was their carrier deal, as they themselves were not _allowed_ to sell phones with that feature set. It wasn't unthinkable to build it engineering-wise. (It was expensive yet with underwhelming features, a 2G phone with no apps at a time when even feature phones had 3G and apps for almost five years.) It was unthinkable business-wise. Those rules are easier to play hard and fast with. That there is unfounded criticism doesn't mean all criticisms is unfounded.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The carrier deal was also a surprise to them, but if you believe this anonymous former RIM engineer they also didn't think it was possible to do what the iPhone did and still have acceptable battery life: "RIM was even in denial the day after the iPhone was announced with all hands meets claiming all manner of weird things about iPhone: it couldn't do what they were demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor, it must have terrible battery life, etc. Imagine their surprise when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it. It was ridiculous, it was brilliant." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044389
  - sah2ed 9y ago
    The iPhone is now a 10 year old device still selling like crazy. Thanks for the link.
scott_karana 9y ago
Even just using Tesla's numbers, it's unlikely they can ramp up production. They currently produce ~25K Model X and S per quarter, and they're having supply issues with battery packs. (see the other, recent thread on them) How in the world are they going to be producing 20K Model 3s by December, without cannibalizing their more profitable existing sales, and judging by their own previous growth rate and demand problems?
- maratd 9y ago
  > they're having supply issues with battery packs. They are building a huge factory for making battery packs in Nevada. That's already operational and will be more so by December. I imagine that's part of the solution.

Kluny 9y ago

Commenting to remind myself to check back later and see if you were right!

falcolas 9y ago
By clicking on thr time string in the post, you will get to a page which will let you favorite the actual comment, without your own comment.

taneq 9y ago

> I suspect the first cars that they sell will roll off the VP tools and not off the main lines anyway. There a story a couple of months ago about the fact that they've saved a lot of time by going straight to the main production lines rather than building a testing line first? Is this a good plan? Time will tell but I'm sure glad I'm not involved. :S Sources: http://www.newsweek.com/tesla-skips-traditional-manufacturing-steps-model-3-588503 http://www.newsweek.com/tesla-skips-traditional-manufacturin... http://autoweek.com/article/green-cars/tesla-wont-test-model-3s-assembly-line-starting-full-scale-production http://autoweek.com/article/green-cars/tesla-wont-test-model... Edit: From the second link: > Let's recap: Tesla's flawed Model X launch was partly due to not taking the time to adjust for problems identified in the soft-tooling phase of pre-production. The lesson Tesla learned? Don't bother with soft tooling for the Model 3. Wow. Is it just me or does that sound like "The unit tests kept failing and made us miss a deadline. No more unit tests!"

Munkum 9y ago
No, this is not a good plan at all, it's incredibly risky. To get the car all road legal it needs to be crash tested - that is usually what the pre-volume builds are used for. If they fail (and they sometimes do, because you can't do a finite element analysis on an assembly as complex as a car in the variety of scenarios that you would crash test it) then you need to reengineer the car. This usually means panel gauge increases, sometimes it means additional reinforcement parts (boron steel inserts and brackets a lot of the time). If that happens the production could be delayed by months as they'd need to find a way to feed those parts to the line and modify any tooling that might be effected.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  So these all sound like very true and good things. No reason to doubt there is a reason current big auto does it the way they do. On the other hand, Musk hasn't been one to just say stuff and totally fail. By and large he is getting what he says he is getting, and on a close to reasonable time frame. If we stuck to what big auto said, there would be no autopilot, and EVs would still be a toy with a tiny range. I have at this point little reason to doubt that they will pull this off. Clearly making cars is a solved problem, millions are made every year. It SEEMS like Musk hires people that know their stuff. So I am going long on Tesla, and short on existing big auto. Time will tell what happens ;)

calafrax 9y ago

I would have more confidence in this announcement if it was not made a day before Tesla announced that they are experiencing falling demand for their existing line and barely hit the bottom of their production forecast. Their initial "hand over" is to employees, not real customers, so it is really just internal testing and does not indicate anything about when actual deliveries will begin. Hitting delivery deadlines is actually worse than missing them if you are hitting them by pushing an unfinished product which is losing tons of money per unit due to inefficient production processes and creating huge future liabilities for warranty repairs, recalls, and negligence lawsuits if someone gets injured by a defect. There is a reason why Goldman is revising their price target down on this news and their target is half the current stock price.

mikeash 9y ago
Those employees are still paying their own personal money for the car. They're as much "real customers" as you or me.
- davewritescode 9y ago
  I suspect they're not paying what customers will pay and they're likely to be leases since they're effectively pre-production models and you'd have to be a big knucklehead to bet on the resale value of a pre-production Model 3.
  - mjamesaustin 9y ago
    Tesla offers zero employee discounts on their cars. Even Musk pays full price, on principle. https://www.quora.com/Do-Tesla-employees-get-a-discount-on-Tesla-cars https://www.quora.com/Do-Tesla-employees-get-a-discount-on-T...
  - greedo 9y ago
    I imagine the value of a pre-production Model 3 will be quite good in ten years. Look at what the iPhone (original release) is worth. Or perhaps a Ford Model T?
9y ago

stevenj 9y ago

What do you think is a realistic goal for its production (numbers wise) of the Model 3 by the end of the year?

SEJeff 9y ago

People said the exact same thing when Musk announced SpaceX. Then they said no big deal after the Falcon 1 worked, and laughed when Musk said he was going to land the Falcon 9 on a barge in the ocean, then he did. Next they said there was simply no way SpaceX would be able to refly a used first stage, which they've now successfully done twice. History of his accomplishments show us "industry knowledge" doesn't really matter as he's trying to do things explicitly different than the rest of the industry.

JshWright 9y ago
What's more, a lot of the materials science and metalworking "lessons learned" (particularly when it comes to working with aluminum) at SpaceX are available to Tesla.
- Munkum 9y ago
  Really not the case. Space X have built, um, not many rockets. Tesla are planning to churn out hundreds of thousands of cars. The key isn't being able to do it (as someone else said joining metals is a solved problem), it's being able to do it with high quality and in a reliable way. Do you think Space X joining techniques are optimised for making 100k joints in a factory environment?
  - SEJeff 9y ago
    You are entirely incorrect. SpaceX perfected friction stir welding for large sheets of aluminum for their fuel tanks. That tech was transferred that technology entirely to Tesla, who happen to make cars from large pieces of aluminum (Model X and S). https://electrek.co/2015/05/24/spacex-transferred-novel-welding-techniques-and-equipment-to-tesla-motors/ https://electrek.co/2015/05/24/spacex-transferred-novel-weld...
    - Munkum 9y ago
      There is no way that they are using friction stir welding in a high volume line. It's a very slow process, visually it's horrible (big scar along the joint) and, though I've no experience with it I would have thought that pushing a spinning piece of metal at high temperatures through two thin abutting pressings would be highly unreliable.

Diederich 9y ago

Disclosure: I've never worked in or around the automotive industry. The amount of focus and effort Tesla has put toward the tech in the Model 3 pales in comparison to the amount they have put toward factory automation. Musk has said as much in multiple interviews. He's talked about how it's 10x harder to 'build the machines that build the machines'. See also their acquisition of Grohmann Engineering. Having said all that, we will have to wait and see. One thing I do know is that Musk's ventures have a long history of surprising the status quo.

wand3r 9y ago

There is no way anyone could ever profitably produce a rapidly reusable rocket. No one can make an online bank. No one can do solar profitably. No one can replace the yellow pages (Zip2 got passed on when an investor threw the yellow pages on the table). No one can make an electric vehicle that doesn't suck... You might not be wrong, but the shorts get squeezed Everytime someone says this. I wouldn't bet against Tesla and the market is more than tolerant of these delays

devopsproject 9y ago

There was an article recently where some higher ups talked about the engineering. They described focusing work on the factory itself instead of the product with the idea being that every time you improve or fix the factory, you gain many upsides in the final output. Can't find the article but I was an interesting read

Qub3d 9y ago
(Warning: biased source) Electrek has an article quoting it. Elon was describing the idea of designing the "Machine that builds the Machines"[0]. “We realized that the true problem, the true difficulty, and where the greatest potential is – is building the machine that makes the machine. In other words, it’s building the factory. I’m really thinking of the factory like a product.” [0]:https://electrek.co/2016/06/01/elon-musk-machines-making-machines-rant-about-tesla-manufacturing/ https://electrek.co/2016/06/01/elon-musk-machines-making-mac...

Aron 9y ago

> There is no way on god's earth that Tesla can ramp up production like that I'm not clear what like that you are referring to, or what would be a more reasonable plan.

fosco 9y ago

This is not gods earth. I would be interested in how they solved these challenges but you come off being someone who just points out problems which is not as helpful as someone who thinks of solutions, also not as abrasive either.