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Disclaimer up front: I work for a Tesla competitor. People believe funny things about Tesla and Elon. But before I talk about that, let me say: I've been extr

by csours 9y ago

Disclaimer up front: I work for a Tesla competitor. People believe funny things about Tesla and Elon. But before I talk about that, let me say: I've been extremely impressed with Tesla and Elon for their ability to eventually deliver, and to build unparalleled excitement around electric vehicles. I believe Elon is truly a visionary. Now for the funny things: 1. You can throw money at problems to fix them: If you do this you end up with a 1980's Jaguar - lovely and fast and fun, but unreliable, and overly expensive, and your competition will eat your lunch. 2. Tesla shouldn't be graded on cars or car production, they are an X company (X= software, technology, etc): Whatever kind of company you think Tesla is, right now they make cars and that's all you can grade them on right now. If you want to make a bet about the future, go for it, but realize that it is a bet. 3. Automation will solve this: GM spent about $60 Billion on advanced automation in the 1980's because they could not believe that Toyota was building cars at the cost and quality with human labor (this is a gross simplification). 10-15 years later, GM basically adopted the Toyota Production System. It may be possible to build quality cars in a cost effective manner with near 100% automation, but I do not believe it is possible to build them BECAUSE OF automation. You must have a good quality process first. Elon's previous comments about having a bed near the end of the production line rings alarm bells for anyone who has been in manufacturing. You cannot inspect your way to quality.

QAPereo 9y ago
Just to 3 Unknown to analysts, investors and the hundreds of thousands of customers who signed up to buy it, as recently as early September major portions of the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand, away from the automated production line, according to people familiar with the matter.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-teslas-production-delays-parts-of-model-3-were-being-made-by-hand-1507321057 https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-teslas-production-delays...
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  > still being banged out by hand, away from the automated production line, according to people familiar with the matter.” The press is up and running: https://www.instagram.com/p/BaInXGBg9G7/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BaInXGBg9G7/ Based on a 3.7 second cycle time, they can bang out 5,837,837 body panels per year (assuming some math an automotive engineer on /r/teslamotors provided that takes into account downtime and typical automotive labor scheduling: 50 weeks/year * 5 days/week * 24 hours/day * 3600 seconds/hour)/3.7 second panel cycle EDIT: csours: Thanks! I removed my grossly inaccurate prediction of per-vehicle pressed components. in_cahoots: Original response was to comment that Tesla is still banging out components by hand; this is possible, my rebuttal is that they do have parts of the line that are fully operational.
  - csours 9y ago
    6 is much too few. You have floorpan, roof (even if the roof is glass you still have to hold it), hood, liftgate/trunk, each door inner, each door outer. Thats 12 big ones, then all of the little ones that stiffen the big ones, and the other little ones that make things like the door pillars. There's probably like 70 stamped metal parts in all. There are probably a number of press lines and the press lines would be changing dies periodically to make different parts.
  - in_cahoots 9y ago
    I’m not sure how this is relevant? Production is only as fast as its slowest component; it doesn’t matter if you can bang out a billion body panels per year if you don’t have enough human labor to put the pieces together.
  - Animats 9y ago
    That's what stamping looks like. Here's Subaru banging out car doors.[1] About the same cycle time, using automated loading and unloading. [1] https://youtu.be/r9byGJtbCws?t=63 https://youtu.be/r9byGJtbCws?t=63
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- ojm 9y ago
  > major portions of the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand Reminds me of some other automotive companies when a new car is launched..
  - tgtweak 9y ago
    Good to see "do things that don't scale" being applied to the very definition of things that need to scale.
    - tgtweak 9y ago
      I feel the need to correct the record. You do the things that don't scale in order to better realize/appreciate where to put the effort to fix them. Tesla has the equivalent of an mvp/poc production line. You'd be kidding yourself if you think they're not improving it every minute. And you know the improvements they're making are the ones with the biggest impact, in that exact order of priority. If you try to make the perfect assembly line before you deliver 1 car, you'll be making huge over-engineering expenditures and costly assumptions which result in even greater net production losses.
squarefoot 9y ago
"2. [...] right now they make cars and that's all you can grade them on right now. If you want to make a bet about the future, go for it, but realize that it is a bet." This. But the potential is huge compared to other vendors for being more biased to research than production. Other vendors are forced to keep time, people and money allocated to maintain their 19th century gas engines production while Tesla can use all its resources for new things. Having a lot of brain power devoted to new ideas will inevitably bring achievements in other fields, which won't necessary become Tesla products. A serendipitous discovery could lead to a patent for something they cannot produce or aren't interested in producing (say a new medical machine) but could license to others.
- csours 9y ago
  > Other vendors are forced to keep time, people and money allocated to maintain their 19th century gas engines. GM had to sell 600,000 high-margin trucks to raise the same amount of funding that Tesla got from investors (VERY ballpark numbers). With those funds, GM also had to invest in over 30 assembly plants around the world and 12 or so product launches, not including engine and transmission programs.
gumby 9y ago
> You cannot inspect your way to quality. I have to emphasize the sentence you ended your comment with. Anybody who has worked in volume production has heard this phrase too many times to count. People who never learned the difference between QC and QA never seem to understand this phrase either. Doesn't mean they are dumb, but does mean they don't even understand the scope of what they don't know. Another common misunderstanding is the dynamics of the learning curve. Costs of high volume production drop precipitously (and quality typically increases proportionally as well) but incrementally as volume goes up. A common misunderstanding is that that means you work incrementally to get better. But that is true for systems set up from the start as high volume systems. Tesla the company has been at it for almost 15 years (Musk has been there for 13 of them) and still appears to be in low volume manufacturing mode. It's not super surprising when you consider that Space X makes small volume, bespoke hardware. A big backend system is still a one-off even if you run huge volume through it. Cars, phones, etc are a completely different game.
- sumedh 9y ago
  > People who never learned the difference between QC and QA never seem to understand this phrase either. Can you please explain the difference?
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I am not they, but QA is process oriented and QC is product oriented. How you do it vs. what the results are.
  - rkangel 9y ago
    QA is checking that your output is good. QC is making sure that your output is good before it gets to QA.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      Either you or I have it back to front.
    - dilemma 9y ago
specialist 9y ago
”You cannot inspect your way to quality.” Exactly. Once you understand (grok) this, a lot of efforts become obviously silly. Like standardized testing regiments for K-12 public education. Source: Former QA/Test manager, back when we still pretended to care about quality, eliminating defects, reducing costs.

by csours 9y ago

QAPereo 9y ago

Just to 3 Unknown to analysts, investors and the hundreds of thousands of customers who signed up to buy it, as recently as early September major portions of the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand, away from the automated production line, according to people familiar with the matter.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-teslas-production-delays-parts-of-model-3-were-being-made-by-hand-1507321057 https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-teslas-production-delays...

toomuchtodo 9y ago
> still being banged out by hand, away from the automated production line, according to people familiar with the matter.” The press is up and running: https://www.instagram.com/p/BaInXGBg9G7/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BaInXGBg9G7/ Based on a 3.7 second cycle time, they can bang out 5,837,837 body panels per year (assuming some math an automotive engineer on /r/teslamotors provided that takes into account downtime and typical automotive labor scheduling: 50 weeks/year * 5 days/week * 24 hours/day * 3600 seconds/hour)/3.7 second panel cycle EDIT: csours: Thanks! I removed my grossly inaccurate prediction of per-vehicle pressed components. in_cahoots: Original response was to comment that Tesla is still banging out components by hand; this is possible, my rebuttal is that they do have parts of the line that are fully operational.
- csours 9y ago
  6 is much too few. You have floorpan, roof (even if the roof is glass you still have to hold it), hood, liftgate/trunk, each door inner, each door outer. Thats 12 big ones, then all of the little ones that stiffen the big ones, and the other little ones that make things like the door pillars. There's probably like 70 stamped metal parts in all. There are probably a number of press lines and the press lines would be changing dies periodically to make different parts.
- in_cahoots 9y ago
  I’m not sure how this is relevant? Production is only as fast as its slowest component; it doesn’t matter if you can bang out a billion body panels per year if you don’t have enough human labor to put the pieces together.
- Animats 9y ago
  That's what stamping looks like. Here's Subaru banging out car doors.[1] About the same cycle time, using automated loading and unloading. [1] https://youtu.be/r9byGJtbCws?t=63 https://youtu.be/r9byGJtbCws?t=63
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
ojm 9y ago
> major portions of the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand Reminds me of some other automotive companies when a new car is launched..
- tgtweak 9y ago
  Good to see "do things that don't scale" being applied to the very definition of things that need to scale.
  - tgtweak 9y ago
    I feel the need to correct the record. You do the things that don't scale in order to better realize/appreciate where to put the effort to fix them. Tesla has the equivalent of an mvp/poc production line. You'd be kidding yourself if you think they're not improving it every minute. And you know the improvements they're making are the ones with the biggest impact, in that exact order of priority. If you try to make the perfect assembly line before you deliver 1 car, you'll be making huge over-engineering expenditures and costly assumptions which result in even greater net production losses.

squarefoot 9y ago

"2. [...] right now they make cars and that's all you can grade them on right now. If you want to make a bet about the future, go for it, but realize that it is a bet." This. But the potential is huge compared to other vendors for being more biased to research than production. Other vendors are forced to keep time, people and money allocated to maintain their 19th century gas engines production while Tesla can use all its resources for new things. Having a lot of brain power devoted to new ideas will inevitably bring achievements in other fields, which won't necessary become Tesla products. A serendipitous discovery could lead to a patent for something they cannot produce or aren't interested in producing (say a new medical machine) but could license to others.

csours 9y ago
> Other vendors are forced to keep time, people and money allocated to maintain their 19th century gas engines. GM had to sell 600,000 high-margin trucks to raise the same amount of funding that Tesla got from investors (VERY ballpark numbers). With those funds, GM also had to invest in over 30 assembly plants around the world and 12 or so product launches, not including engine and transmission programs.

gumby 9y ago

> You cannot inspect your way to quality. I have to emphasize the sentence you ended your comment with. Anybody who has worked in volume production has heard this phrase too many times to count. People who never learned the difference between QC and QA never seem to understand this phrase either. Doesn't mean they are dumb, but does mean they don't even understand the scope of what they don't know. Another common misunderstanding is the dynamics of the learning curve. Costs of high volume production drop precipitously (and quality typically increases proportionally as well) but incrementally as volume goes up. A common misunderstanding is that that means you work incrementally to get better. But that is true for systems set up from the start as high volume systems. Tesla the company has been at it for almost 15 years (Musk has been there for 13 of them) and still appears to be in low volume manufacturing mode. It's not super surprising when you consider that Space X makes small volume, bespoke hardware. A big backend system is still a one-off even if you run huge volume through it. Cars, phones, etc are a completely different game.

sumedh 9y ago
> People who never learned the difference between QC and QA never seem to understand this phrase either. Can you please explain the difference?
- KGIII 9y ago
  I am not they, but QA is process oriented and QC is product oriented. How you do it vs. what the results are.
- rkangel 9y ago
  QA is checking that your output is good. QC is making sure that your output is good before it gets to QA.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Either you or I have it back to front.
  - dilemma 9y ago

specialist 9y ago

”You cannot inspect your way to quality.” Exactly. Once you understand (grok) this, a lot of efforts become obviously silly. Like standardized testing regiments for K-12 public education. Source: Former QA/Test manager, back when we still pretended to care about quality, eliminating defects, reducing costs.