Orthodox automakers have reasons behind their methods that aren't legacy bullshit: they're the product of years of practical experience in production line desig

Orthodox automakers have reasons behind their methods that aren't legacy bullshit: they're the product of years of practical experience in production line design: a finely-honed way of cranking out lots of an identical product at a cost that should be recoverable from a normal rate of sales. There are still duds every year, when a particular make's particular model is clearly the worst-received out of a large field of dozens, but by and large this process works very well. Musk has thrown out the book entirely, and has taken the opposite step at almost every stage. This is a mistake, because some of those decisions have real consequences that will hurt later. For example, most carmakers make lots of an identical product, from the same batch of parts, for a particular run. If a part (or a manufacturing process) turns out to be defective, they know that all of that run could be compromised, so they recall a batch of VINs. While a portion of these cars is probably fine, recalling a broader set allows some vehicles to be checked and serviced before problems happen or people get injured. If Tesla tweaks the process very often, the cars instead become practically hand-made, to where there are barely some that are alike. This makes it much harder to proactively identify risks about production siblings.