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A fun comparison: Munro on the BMW i3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqiBWfsDTAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqiBWfsDTAA Munro on the Tesla Model 3: htt

• devy 9y ago
  Oh man! Munro is brutally honest in his assessment of manufacturing excellence :) The contrast makes me chuckle.
• sxates 9y ago
  One of those companies is a multi-million dollar client for them, and one is not.
  • devy 9y ago
    I suspected that as well - but any hints of evidence? To be fair though, Tesla's manufacturing quality does indeed falling behind their targeted segment majorly. Like Munro said, even Kia makes better assembly these days (without uneven gaps etc.) But yes, have a paid contract for product promotion doesn't hurt
  • THE_PUN_STOPS 9y ago
    On the other hand, Munro is a company whose ability to sell products and services depends wholly on the veracity of their reports.
  • Someone1234 9y ago
    Instead of attacking their reputation, maybe pointing out actual flaws with the assessment as presented would be more constructive?
  • rsp1984 9y ago
    BMW certainly doesn't pay them to rip apart an i3. Their competitors do.
    • gwern 9y ago
      BMW certainly might: > Plus, the engineers told me, the cost models are proven. Some manufactures, they said, actually hand their own parts to Munro asking them to use their model to see how close they can get to the actual cost of manufacture. Munro says their numbers always come very close, and that they’ve even been accused of having insider information. Munro isn’t just there to help engineers learn about how the competition designs and assembles its cars, it’s also there to help automakers—who really should be called “auto assemblers”—figure out if they’re getting ripped off by their parts suppliers. Knowing exactly how much it costs to build a wheel bearing, for example, can act as leverage for negotiation against a supplier of that part. At the same time, suppliers also go to Munro to learn. If, for example, one of their competitors is selling a part for what seems like impossibly too little, the supplier might ask Munro to tear it down and figure out how the competitor is saving cost.
      • icc97 9y ago
        Hopefully Tesla takes seriously what Munro is saying.
    • emmelaich 9y ago
      They should though. Much like IT companies pay bug bounties and penetration testers.
      • icc97 9y ago
        Perhaps suing companies is the judicial way of valuing bug bounties.
  • Bluestrike2 9y ago
    I've seen similar comments everywhere I stumbled across this story. It's an easy takeaway, but that's not how automakers look at competitive benchmarking. Working with a company like Munro is an engineering decision. Munro breaks cars down, reverse engineers everything they possibly can, and draws as many conclusions about production methods as possible. Engineers with other automakers use this data to learn from how others approach problems. The engineers don't give a damn about a Munro PR video about a competitor, period. It's a complete non-issue for them, and the same goes for their managers who are the ones who decide to work with Munro. They want to know every detail about how all the sausage is made (or what the sausage actually is). They don't care if the car is well made or poorly made; they're focused on the how; after all, even a car with severe quality control issues can offer useful insights. Besides, every peculiar (or even dumb) design or manufacturing decision they've made was previously laid bare by companies like Munro. Think of the process as something more like peer review or a morbidity and mortality conference for doctors. It's not a public process, despite something like this video. Basically, the people who would care if Munro upset the company by speaking favorably about Tesla are the people who have no involvement in whether their company works with Munro in the first place. If someone from Ford marketing told Ford engineering to quit working with Munro because of a video, they'd be laughed at and promptly ignored.
    • crazysim 9y ago
      Maybe he's trying to sell his services to Tesla so he dialed up the prickiness. "I'm calling this out about your car. You got quality problems. We can help."
      • nebolo 9y ago
        I don't think Munro is in that business. Understanding how something is built is different from how to consistently and price effectively build it to specs/tolerances.
    • icc97 9y ago
      The stuff that Munro is pointing out is so fundamental that I don't see how there's bias in it. The craziness that there is some hidden circle underneath the front hatch that you have to know to open and pull out a couple of leads to attach to a 12V battery is maddening. The fire department would have to do this to be able to cut the cable that's in the front hatch. I can see there being a Model 3 recall over that kind of stuff. What's the point of over the air software updates if your hardware is unsafe.
  • avs733 9y ago
    The counterfactual to this argument is that his clients would be much more likely to purchase his products if there was something to learn from a competitor like Tesla. They buy his services and reports to learn. If Tesla is vastly superior, and Munro understands how, that is critical to the Big three. Knowing or having some small boutique industry firm take pot shots at Tesla doesn't get them anything. This isn't being reported on NPR and CNN. In reality, I think this has almost no impact on his business other than a little bit of publicity. Well run companies on the scale of GM are going to be just as interested in the data on a competitor whether their competitor is better or worse. There is always something to be learned. Ford is going to learn different things from Hyundai and from Mercedes...but they are going to learn.
  • deleted 9y ago
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• S_A_P 9y ago
  I would not doubt that the build quality of the Tesla is lacking in areas that are cosmetic. Ive seen numerous Model S and Model X vehicles with atrocious panel gaps and things that people coming from the likes of Audi, BMW, MB, and Lexus would notice. That said, it doesnt seem to be affecting their safety, as there is a pretty significant amount of crash data from tesla vehicles that shows that they are among the safest vehicles in crash tests.
  • Someone1234 9y ago
    With all due respect did you not watch the video? Much of the focus was on safety during an accident. The 3 they were looking at had two points to cut the electrical system, both of which were hard to get to during an accident, and the rear doors had no mechanical backup at all. If power goes out rear passengers need to make their way to the front seats or trunk. Maybe watch the actual video rather than imagining what the video was to say and then responding to that.
    • S_A_P 9y ago
      I did see the video, and I know the criticisms about the electrical system. I think that is a very real scenario that should be addressed. But not all crashes will cause fire and loss of power in this car. There have already been Model 3's that crashed, and the occupants were not hurt even after a head on collision with a utility pole that totaled the car. That was my point. It isn't a safety issue that the cars have panel gap issues and they look like beta versions. Saying that the car is built like a 90s Kia would imply that it is hazardous to drive the car and that it is unsafe at any speed. Its hyperbole. Its grandstanding, its not reality. Im a fan of Tesla, I wish the best for them. They arent perfect, there is a ton of room for improvement, but it is largely cosmetic and not safety critical.
    • perl4ever 9y ago
      There are cars with rear seats that don't even have rear doors...in fact, I own one.
      • 9y ago
• blinkingled 9y ago
  That's laughably bad of Tesla - the thumb wide gaps in the body, the gluing rubber parts on glass seals because the original one was way out of tolerance, door rattle, one door having two ways to open but not the others - the screen that goes you have activated alternate door opening mechanism or some such thing - all pretty embarrassing. Never mind the insane difficulty to open the hood in an accident which looks like a real safety issue. Also who in the 2018 world designs trunk doors that would take two hands to close for kids, smaller/older individuals? The non power operated trunk on my CR-V closes with a finger!
  • Shivetya 9y ago
    I do not understand how there is no manual mechanism for opening the rear doors from the inside, how does that even happen? His comments about the outside door handles were at least prefaced with his own physical limitation but the state of that car is mind boggling. This is on top of the known promised features and oversight with regards to the programming of the display. I did notice on reddit there is a story of a III having cratered its engine. http://teslaweekly.com/first-model-3-motor-failure-reported-tesla-engineers-on-their-way-to-investigate/ http://teslaweekly.com/first-model-3-motor-failure-reported-... All in all 2017 wasn't their best year so hopefully 2018 will see a turn around but even max projections are well under 200k cars this year
    • blinkingled 9y ago
      >manual mechanism for opening the rear doors from the inside Brother of my close friend literally burned to death in a Hyundai with no manual override for unlocking/opening doors. Granted he had modified the car's stereo system with custom speakers and the roadside mechanic did not do a good job with it which caused short circuit/fire. But had he been able to manually open the doors he would still be alive today. And to think Tesla is all batteries that have strong chance of starting a fire - ugh. If car body construction tech was new you could cut Tesla some slack but given all of these issues have been fixed by pretty much all manufacturers years ago - I have no sympathy for Tesla there.
      • 9y ago
• chiph 9y ago
  The amazing thing is they're saying that the i3 is profitable at sales of 20k/yr.
• jtchang 9y ago
  That was a very informative video. My respect for the CEO shot up quickly. He wasn't really trying to sell anything but simply illustrating points of concern. I can tell he very much enjoys doing what he does.
  • dbuder 9y ago
    He's trying to sell his services.
  • katastic 9y ago
    I know this is a place for software/web developers but good god, really? It was at best a minor tech article in a car magazine in the Wal-Mart magazine stands. What exactly did you learn? He kept saying the i3 "life module" (agile! AGILE!) was some magical achievement. Yeah, carbon fiber is neat. They also choose the grain direction of panels for optimum efficiency. - We've been using grain direction on wood for what, thousands of years? - We've been made cars "strong" for century. It's called a tube frame. And it's one of the main reasons dragsters/NASCAR drivers don't die on impacts that will kill most people in consumer cars. What's actually important these days is not how "strong" a frame is. It's how it deforms to absorb maximum energy on impact so the passengers experience the least acceleration possible. "Strong" has been solved. And crush areas have been common for decades upon decades. The only new thing here is they're using carbon fiber. And the only reason they're doing that... is 1) "marketing" and 2) weight reduction because battery cars are very heavy AND very sensitive to weight for mileage. Automotive companies aren't on the frontline of technology. They're on the frontline of CHEAP/mass-producible technology. Simply putting some carbon fiber on a body is not magical to us practicing mechanical engineers. But I guess it may seem like "magic" to software people, the way mechanical people see IT/software as magic. What's actually "Cool" about this company/video is how they can tear down entire vehicles and come up with accurate cost estimates, as well as the construction order. That takes a _lot_ of work and industry experience. But the technology in those cars? It's not even remotely new.
    • katastic 9y ago
      Man, I hit that post on the head. I guess nobody here knows anything about mechanical engineering.
• taneq 9y ago
  From the title I was hoping they'd actually, well, "tear into" the Model 3. Instead I got seven minutes of them complaining about the door handles. They did raise a couple of legitimate concerns (dual ways to open the doors, no manual/mechanical way to open the rear doors, body fit and finish seemed poor) but it was hard to pick them out from all the "hurr durr never seen that before" and associated whinging about things that were probably on page one of the user manual.
  • blackbagboys 9y ago
    I don't think "hurr durr never seen that before" is an accurate paraphrase; I'd say it was more along the lines of "I've never seen bodywork this shoddy on a modern luxury vehicle."
    • kwhitefoot 9y ago
      How is the Tesla 3 a luxury vehicle?
• tbabb 9y ago
  Whoof. If these kinds of problems and design issues are still present when I'm ready to buy a 3, I'd probably reconsider. Maybe they'll tighten their tolerances as they perfect their line, but some of those design decisions seem almost beyond explanation-- the double door handles (where one option shames the user for doing what should be the normal MO), the absence of mechanical releases in the back and in the frunk, and so on.
• aorth 9y ago
  I don't follow the car industry but I did happen to catch this 2015 video of Munro talking about the BMW i3. He says things like "this is the watershed," "they invented new science," "this is the Model T of our time," etc. I got a whole new respect for BMW after watching that video. Munro even followed the production chain to Morocco while investigating the costing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDr4L6BzpP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDr4L6BzpP8
• hop 9y ago
  BMW i3 has the worst designed interior of any car i’ve ever been in and the road noise is insane. I’d take a few annoyances that come with the first run of Tesla’s startup manufacturing over the i3 any damn day.
  • 72deluxe 9y ago
    Is it that bad? The wheels look like ultra thin elastic band wheels which would transmit much less road noise than normal fat wheels, so is it just a lack of sound proofing in it?
  • icc97 9y ago
    I thought the inside of the i3 was ok, just that it looked ugly from the outside
• pcnix 9y ago
  This is an amazingly honest review.
• icc97 9y ago
  It does make me hope that BMW are working on another i3 style car that isn't so damn ugly.
• chesimov 9y ago
  For me, in both of these videos, the audio is severely mangled (across different browsers). Have never experienced anything like this on youtube before. Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening? Edit: solved, some strange driver issue it seems.