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This quote is brutal: > A Tesla spokesperson said the primary car evaluated by Munro was built in 2017, adding: "We have significantly refined our production p
by jonknee 9y ago
This quote is brutal:
> A Tesla spokesperson said the primary car evaluated by Munro was built in 2017, adding: "We have significantly refined our production processes since then, and while there’s always room for improvement, our data already shows that Model 3 quality is rapidly getting better.”
Sounds like Tesla is agreeing that they sold sub-par vehicles?
- LoSboccacc 9y agoIn this case may be but the statement itself says now is better than previously without explicit admission that previous quality was bad. It’s like apple, every year iphone is the best iohone yet, but that doesn’t imply directly that the previous model was bad.
- jonknee 9y agoIt would be huge news if Apple said new iPhone X's are better than launch day iPhone X's...
- Rexxar 9y agoWould it be news if Apple said that new iPhone X's cost less to build than launch day iPhone X's ?
- ggg9990 9y agoNo, because that doesn’t affect the customer. Tesla’s most loyal and gung-ho customers are punished for their enthusiasm by getting the worst Model 3s that will ever be made.
- saltcured 9y agoThe automobile market is not like smartphones. In spite of assembly lines, the identical unit is not stamped out one million times and sealed in glue. Car designs are quite modular and individual components and suppliers are revised during manufacture. There are far more intermediate sub-assembly steps and smaller volumes produced in each batch. It is common to see recalls and technical service bulletins that "patch" cars already delivered to gain some of the fixes devised after the car left the line. Sometimes these are direct replacements of parts,and sometimes they are literal patches of the older design, such as applying an extra gasket or some adhesive to resolve a rattle in an interior trim piece which was designed away in its next revision. While marketing maintains "model years" as a nominally uniform offering of a particular car, it is not uncommon to find odd half-year or worse hybrids which mix together cosmetic and mechanical features of different years. These happen when the manufacturer drains out certain supply chains and integrates unusual combinations of the different modules into specific cars. People focus on the visible parts like cosmetic body trim or interior features, but this also applies to mechanical and electronic parts buried deep inside the car.
- LoSboccacc 9y agoWhat? they had plenty times defects were found in early production model and fixed down the road.
- Rexxar 9y agoUsing more resource than necessary to build a product doesn't it has deficiencies from the user point of view.
- jonknee 9y agoBut they admit it's not just a matter of resources, the quality is changing: "Model 3 quality is rapidly getting better". That means Tesla itself is admitting there are some Model 3s out there better than others, pretty wild for a new car.
- Diederich 9y ago> pretty wild for a new car This is the heart of the question. My understanding is that Tesla Motors, unlike most every other car maker, iterating their manufacturing (hardware) side as quickly as they are iterating on the software side. For a more concrete example, the initial version of the SpaceX Merlin engine had 76,000 pounds of thrust. That same engine now has 205,000 pounds. I saw an interview last week where an employee at SpaceX said that no two Falcon 9 rockets come off the line exactly the same. Iterative hardware improvements are going on all the time. This is unheard of in aerospace. This is a huge advantage compared to traditional manufacturing approaches.
- fma 9y agoHow can they be certain the improvements don't have side effects or downsides. If every iteration of software is an improvement, we would have bug free software!
- Diederich 9y agoApplying considered and appropriate effort to anything will tend to improve the thing. Its why we have smart phones and cities today. It's not an absolute; I've seen good software lose its quality with inappropriate and ill-considered effort put into it, but that's not the norm. More concretely, each of the previous three Tesla car models have improved steadily over the years.
- Diederich 9y agoI think it means that they are claiming the production quality of their cars has increased, and will continue to increase over time.
- ggg9990 9y agoSo, don’t buy a Model 3 now. Wait until it’s a lot better.
- outworlder 9y agoWell, why? If they are using more material than necessary, or wasting time due to different soldering techniques, why do you care? What matters is that the end result performs as expected. If they are not hitting their production or profitability targets, it's their problem.
- ggg9990 9y agoElon Musk says the quality has vastly improved and continues to improve. That means today’s Model 3 is worse than tomorrow’s and yesterday’s is worse than today’s.
- icebraining 9y agoThat's true of almost all products, and certainly of most cars. A 2017 Honda Civic is better than a 1977 Honda Civic. But you can't drive a 2017 Civic in 1978.
- ggg9990 9y agoSure, but within a model generation (eg E90 BMW, 2007-2012), the cars are largely the same.
- icebraining 9y agoI'm no gearhead, but the change from the N54 to the N55 engine doesn't seem inconsequential.
- thaumaturgy 9y agoWarren Buffett: "I am 7 billion dollars richer in 2017 than I was in 2016." You: "So you were poor in 2016 then?"
- jonknee 9y agoThat has nothing at all to do with the changing quality of a manufactured product.
- thaumaturgy 9y agoCorrect!
- lsh123 9y agoThe old saying "Don't install a new Windows version until SP2 is out" is still true :)
- fma 9y agoWhen Microsoft treated their customers as beta testers... It was a bad thing. When Tesla treats their customers as beta tester... It's a good thing?