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Tesla Asks for Model 3 Factory Volunteers to Prove ‘Haters’ Wrong
- melling 9y agoTesla is only at around 1,000 cars pers week on the Model 3. There’s a link in the article where you can track Model 3 production: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/ Their goal is 10,000 cars a week by the end of the year. Yesterday there was talk that Tesla used too much automation: https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/tesla-is-overusing-automation-in-model-3-final-assembly-analysts-say/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/tesla-is-overusing-automat...
- legitster 9y ago> Tesla has accomplished something no other automaker can claim: It's made a relatively affordable electric car. That remains to be seen. Selling something at a loss doesn't equate with making something affordable.
- Someone1234 9y ago> > Tesla has accomplished something no other automaker can claim: It's made a relatively affordable electric car. That quote doesn't even make sense. The Model 3 isn't even the cheapest all electric car... The Smart Fortwo Electric ($26K), Nissan LEAF ($29K), Volkswagen e-Golf ($30K), and Mitsubishi i-MiEV ($23K). So Tesla is the only automaker that can claim they made a "relatively affordable electric car" by producing one that's more expensive and has sold fewer units? I do not understand.
- piyh 9y agoThose cars have a range between 58 miles and 125.
- Someone1234 9y agoHow about we stick to the claim at hand instead of trying to spin the topic into more favorable avenues. The quote was: > > Tesla has accomplished something no other automaker can claim: It's made a relatively affordable electric car. Nobody is arguing that Tesla's vehicles have no merit, we're picking apart that absurd claim.
- jandrese 9y agoWasn't that goal already met by the EV1 back in the 80s? If you're willing to live with compromises (short range and long recharge times), affordable electric cars are a long since solved problem.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Wasn't that goal already met by the EV1 back in the 80s? The EV1 wasn't for sale at any price, so it also wasn't relatively affordable. It was leased at a loss to meet a state law while GM lobbied against the law. (Same with its contemporaries the Toyota RAV4EV and the Honda EVplus.)
- stevenwoo 9y agoPretty sure the RAV4EV was sold in limited quantities, there's at least two different ones I have seen in downtown Los Altos over the past 10 years, so Toyota didn't try to destroy them all like GM did with the EV1.
- dragonwriter 9y agoThat's right, I had some RAV4 EVs were sold after the leases when the line was discontinued (though you may have also seen the newer RAV4 EV, as it was resurrected in 2012.)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deelowe 9y agoIsn't that BS anyways? What about the leaf and volt?
- dghughes 9y agoSelling something the customer can't buy doesn't make sense either. Waiting a month for your new car to be delivered is insane waiting three years is a broken system. Tesla Motors expects their customers to be fanatical. But what if I just want to buy a car like a normal person?
- GFischer 9y agoWaiting a month is normal in some countries, like mine - Uruguay - if you want a particular make, color or optionals it's worse (they ship it via container from wherever it's produced and takes months). In Argentina there was a time where slightly used cars sold for more than retail price simply because you had same-day availability instead of waiting for months.
- Cshelton 9y agoThey don't sell any of their vehicles for a loss... do people not read/understand the financials before stating something? They have a positive operating margin per vehicle, they for the most part always have. Is it as high as they want the margin to be yet, no, but it's not a loss. Are they spending a ton of money? YES! They are spending more on Cap Ex and R&D than Chevy and Ford combined. This is the same argument people made with Amazon for 15 years.. until one day Amazon became one of the top 5 companies by market cap. A high growth company should be reinvesting every dollar, and then borrow a shit ton more to reinvest still.
- MLR 9y agoThis isn't really accurate, they shut the line down for a week or so a while back and from indications since then (VIN registrations and deliveries) it seems like they're probably producing around 2,000 a week now. The trend line they added to the graphs on that page were put in recently to try and show this I think.
- Cshelton 9y agoThat is inaccurate. They did over 2,000 last week and are tracking for 2,500 by the end of this week. There are groups on the forums and such that keep track of the latest VINs people have. Also I believe the goal is 5,000/week, not 10,000.
- jandrese 9y agoAccording to the article they're currently close to but not quite reaching 300 cars a day, which would put them closer to 2,000 per week.
- jonknee 9y agoMeanwhile according to the fanboys in /r/teslamotors it appears deliveries are still riddled with obvious defects. Look at the rims on this brand new vehicle! https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/87wbxv/model_3_delivery_today_scratched_rim_charge_port/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/87wbxv/model_3...
- pooya13 9y agoHow are they fanboys if they criticize the assembly?
- Cshelton 9y agoThat issue by the way with the wheels and even pieces of the vehicle is 100% the service center. Which is a new service center in... Miami! The shit holes of all shit holes when it comes to getting things done RIGHT. You have to pay the service techs under the table if you want anything I'm willing to bet... just like the rest of that bottom feeder of a city.
- jonknee 9y agoIt's not just Model 3's from that service center that are getting lengthy defect reports. I mean /r/teslamotors made a checklist for people[1] and it's giant. Things wrong with cars that I didn't even know were possible in this day and age. [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gw13-SKi_XQkooBmWKUunrtL6GO-g8PKSJAl1eLPsJU/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gw13-SKi_XQkooBmWKUunrtL...
- addicted 9y agoI'm a huge Musk/Tesla fan (maybe even a fanboy), but the idea of volunteering so Elon can earn his $55Bn bonus is unnerving to say the least.
- neaden 9y agoRight. Promise a company wide bonus if they meet targets, don't tell them to prove the haters wrong.
- bitumen 9y agoIt’s a cult, inside and out. People believe because they want to believe, and because they have faith in Elon Musk. I don’t hate Tesla, and SpaceX is downright exciting, but I also have no particular faith in Elon Musk. Tesla in particular is in some pretty hot financial water with no obvious way out. The whole Hyperloop thing is disappointing to see taken seriously, and it’s hard to ignore just how rich Musk gets while he works peons to the bone. Now an “us vs them” spiel? Cult.
- metabagel 9y agoThere is an obvious way out - produce a lot of Model 3's in 2018.
- bitumen 9y agoThey’re already near a 50% recall rate on their cars, so upping production significantly seems like a real challenge.
- decacorn 9y agodont understand how you can believe in spacex/tesla and not musk. thats a true oxymoron. he created both.
- sampo 9y agoThe Bloomberg article is written in a very confusing manner (journalists these days) but I understood it means they are asking people to volunteer to switch from the S and X production lines to the Model 3 production line. Not to volunteer to work without salary. Perhaps I understood the article wrong?
- tsdf34 9y ago"Volunteers"
- matte_black 9y agoWondering if I should just short TSLA. Already canceled my model 3 preorder I had placed some time back.
- sremani 9y agoOne thing for Tesla, its a halo brand. One thing against Tesla, their valuation demands impeccable execution to the T. If Model 3 has some sort of massive recall, they will be hit very hard. Would I short it? Not yet!
- toomuchtodo 9y agoI say short it. If you’re right, you’ll profit. If you’re wrong, it’ll be phenomenally exciting to watch.
- matte_black 9y agoProbably not much downside left at the current price though. Might have to wait.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sambull 9y agoMy brother is a fanboy og on the forums, out there taking model3 action shots at the track. He volunteers; he has been waiting send his invite fam.
- vkou 9y agoWill the executive who finds traders shorting his stock insulting volunteer his bonus to the line workers volunteering their weekends?
- keketi 9y agoIf Tesla wants to "prove the haters wrong" by pressuring their employees to work harder it is enough proof that the haters are right.
- soperj 9y agoThey do this every single quarter. There's a reason they got up to 1000 a week right before the end of last quarter, and then dipped back down for months after that. The headline is either going to be that they're on track or that they're not, their stock price is going to be greatly affected one way or the other.
- refurb 9y agoThat actually makes sense. If during quarterly earnings they can claim X number of car the last week of the quarter, that will have a significant impact on the stock even if the week after it drops 50%.
- twblalock 9y agoI wonder if Tesla will experience an assembly line version of the Mythical Man Month. I assume the Model 3 line is a bit different from the others, because if it was the same, they wouldn't have so much trouble meeting targets. So the workers who switch to it from other assembly lines will presumably need some time to ramp up.
- astrodust 9y agoElon Musk may be a good visionary but it's astounding how bad he is at operational elements. Steve Jobs was just as awful at this, the Macintosh project was nearly killed by his ridiculous manufacturing efforts. The resurgence of Apple was only possible with someone like Tim Cook who knew how to build a reliable manufacturing supply chain. Elon should be focusing on finding his Tim.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- matchagaucho 9y agoMan.... if this doesn't trigger a NLRB vote to unionize then I've given up hope on there ever being a working middle class with 40 hr work week, decent pay, and benefits.
- otakucode 9y agoThat went out in the 1980s. Suggesting a single income from 40 hours a week of work should be able to comfortably support an entire family is now akin to radical socialism. Not quite as extreme as it was originally (at the time it constituted demanding most employers raise their labor costs by 600% or more) but moving in that direction every single day.
- jijojv 9y agoI hate that his self-driving vaporware/scam is more than a year late. Please prove me wrong too ASAP.
- pooya13 9y agoThe article uses the word "volunteer", but then it does not provide any evidence that the workers are not being paid. So I would use the word "employee"... Obviously they can offer to pay their workers more for longer hours what's wrong with that??
- UncleEntity 9y agoYou either "volunteer" or you get an unpaid day off if you work on the other production lines.
- pooya13 9y agoWhere did you read that? It said you either take an unpaid day or use paid vacation day. Never mentioned anything about having to volunteer. I do agree that it is not proper practice to have your workers take unpaid off days when they might depend on the income.
- Animats 9y ago"Work harder, not smarter". An auto assembly line is a custom-built machine a thousand feet long. It runs as fast as the slowest station. Its reject rate is determined by the worst station. Every station is custom designed for the product. This is not an easy thing to debug while also trying to use it for production. On the other hand, Tesla has a relatively simple vehicle without much variation. It's a sled with a body on top. The power train is all in the sled. That simplifies assembly. There are US assembly lines which make a whole range of similar vehicles on the same line. Tesla doesn't do that. They don't have a foundry and IC engine plant at all. What they're doing is well within automotive assembly technology. Everybody is guessing. Tesla is so secretive that nobody outside really knows what's wrong with their assembly line. Do they have a few troublesome stations, or many random failures? Custom tooling that's not quite right? A high alarm rate from sensors, causing line stops? No buffering into a station that has variable time, so the line upstream stalls? One station that needs to be split into two, but there's no room? Supplier problems? Aluminum stamping problems? Not enough experienced manufacturing engineers? Their secrecy isn't helping them. Analysts are assuming the worst. They'd probably look better if they had a reporter who really knows auto factories visit for a few days and write up an honest evaluation.
- IwantMyt3 9y agoI live in Florida but would come volunteer. Is there a way I can do that. I do have a vested interest since I am on the list for a 3. but if you workers on MY X line and I needed you to work on MY 3 line I am not sure I would ASK. They work for Tesla motors not Tesla Motors X line. (employees these days ;) )