4 ms·

The first two zones of a four-zone process to produce battery packs are being completely reworked, and this is something they only found out about after they we

The first two zones of a four-zone process to produce battery packs are being completely reworked, and this is something they only found out about after they were already failing to deliver on promised production goals? I've mis-estimated a lot of things in my career, so I'm trying to be sympathetic, but it seems like someone with production line experience should have been able to test individual parts of the production line before committing to thousands of units per month.

sixQuarks 9y ago
As much as I'm a fan of Elon, the Model 3 production always had me worried when they kept having to replace senior production and battery executives in the run up. I'm still very bullish on Tesla long-term, but I think the Model 3 will be a fiasco unless some sort of miracle happens, and we haven't even gotten into initial quality problems that may arise once enough units are in customer hands.
- vkou 9y ago
  Initial quality problems may not arise. They will definitely arise. It's a brand-new model, with brand-new (To TESLA) manufacturing processes - there will always be problems in this situation. What they should hope for is for these problems to arise sooner, rather then later - lessening the cost of recalls.
aquadrop 9y ago
Musk didn't promise those goals, it's what they hoped for. Best case scenario.
avs733 9y ago
So I apologize that this is basically assertion based and vague but I need to protect friends a little bit. I went to undergrad for mechanical engineering at a university generally known for turning out good auto industry engineers. A few years out of school (maybe 2010-11?) I noticed a lot of my alumni friends were starting to move from places like Honda, Toyota, GM, etc. to Tesla. These were the friends I would generally have considered the most motivated and best engineers I graduated with or new in college. To a man (pardon the gendering) they are not at Tesla anymore. They have all left, most for other startups, and they all left disillusioned with the internal Tesla management. They all left completely burned out. They basically felt that a lot of managers with experience in software were brought in and made very bad assumptions about the translation of software development to mechanical device manufacturing...and wouldn't let go of them. Its not that those assumptions NEVER transfer but they don't ALWAYS transfer. Manufacturing ramp up is really really really really hard. Intel has a 10 billion dollar site in Oregon that does nothing but figure out how to put together a manufacturing process that minimally functions and then figure out how to scale it up. Ramping manufacturing is different than designing the parts. You have layers and layers and layers of design. The big OEM's use suppliers not just to outsource cost and employee management but because they allow those companies to build expertise in a specific area that the OEM then no longer has to maintain. I heard stories from friends there about Tesla managers trying to be "Apple like" and demand tighter tolerances on every dimension of a part, driving up not just cost but lead time as suppliers tried to figure out how to retool their whole process to meet the request. I heard stories of requests to design custom bolts to use throughout the process for no discernible reason. That custom bolt (1) means longer design time, because a part that shouldn't have to be designed has to be designed, (2) means greater cost, (3) and means a supplier has to ramp up their own manufacturing of a new part - but hey blame the supplier. I think the most interesting ones were related to internal culture. Tesla is a car company...I know there are all these cool elements of an office we expect of a startup, but having a beer cart rolling around on Friday's at a car company may not send the best image. I now work at a couple universities (grad student/lecturer) and Tesla is the hot employee all the students want, not unsurprisingly, and they are all about campus recruiting. That can work great, but it relies on having a strong base of experienced engineers to train these people. Tesla has not managed to hold on to that experience from my limited dataset and is instead replacing them with cheap inexperienced labor attracted by the 'aspirational' nature of Tesla as an employee. From the pool of friends I have seen go to SpaceX, I have not heard the same things.
- marvin 9y ago
  Fascinating account. Thanks for sharing.

sixQuarks 9y ago

As much as I'm a fan of Elon, the Model 3 production always had me worried when they kept having to replace senior production and battery executives in the run up. I'm still very bullish on Tesla long-term, but I think the Model 3 will be a fiasco unless some sort of miracle happens, and we haven't even gotten into initial quality problems that may arise once enough units are in customer hands.

vkou 9y ago
Initial quality problems may not arise. They will definitely arise. It's a brand-new model, with brand-new (To TESLA) manufacturing processes - there will always be problems in this situation. What they should hope for is for these problems to arise sooner, rather then later - lessening the cost of recalls.

aquadrop 9y ago

Musk didn't promise those goals, it's what they hoped for. Best case scenario.

avs733 9y ago

So I apologize that this is basically assertion based and vague but I need to protect friends a little bit. I went to undergrad for mechanical engineering at a university generally known for turning out good auto industry engineers. A few years out of school (maybe 2010-11?) I noticed a lot of my alumni friends were starting to move from places like Honda, Toyota, GM, etc. to Tesla. These were the friends I would generally have considered the most motivated and best engineers I graduated with or new in college. To a man (pardon the gendering) they are not at Tesla anymore. They have all left, most for other startups, and they all left disillusioned with the internal Tesla management. They all left completely burned out. They basically felt that a lot of managers with experience in software were brought in and made very bad assumptions about the translation of software development to mechanical device manufacturing...and wouldn't let go of them. Its not that those assumptions NEVER transfer but they don't ALWAYS transfer. Manufacturing ramp up is really really really really hard. Intel has a 10 billion dollar site in Oregon that does nothing but figure out how to put together a manufacturing process that minimally functions and then figure out how to scale it up. Ramping manufacturing is different than designing the parts. You have layers and layers and layers of design. The big OEM's use suppliers not just to outsource cost and employee management but because they allow those companies to build expertise in a specific area that the OEM then no longer has to maintain. I heard stories from friends there about Tesla managers trying to be "Apple like" and demand tighter tolerances on every dimension of a part, driving up not just cost but lead time as suppliers tried to figure out how to retool their whole process to meet the request. I heard stories of requests to design custom bolts to use throughout the process for no discernible reason. That custom bolt (1) means longer design time, because a part that shouldn't have to be designed has to be designed, (2) means greater cost, (3) and means a supplier has to ramp up their own manufacturing of a new part - but hey blame the supplier. I think the most interesting ones were related to internal culture. Tesla is a car company...I know there are all these cool elements of an office we expect of a startup, but having a beer cart rolling around on Friday's at a car company may not send the best image. I now work at a couple universities (grad student/lecturer) and Tesla is the hot employee all the students want, not unsurprisingly, and they are all about campus recruiting. That can work great, but it relies on having a strong base of experienced engineers to train these people. Tesla has not managed to hold on to that experience from my limited dataset and is instead replacing them with cheap inexperienced labor attracted by the 'aspirational' nature of Tesla as an employee. From the pool of friends I have seen go to SpaceX, I have not heard the same things.

marvin 9y ago
Fascinating account. Thanks for sharing.