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Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week
- chemmail 8y agoElon may have did this the wrong way. He should have released the 2020 Roadster first, price it at a lux $500k, beat the snot out of every hypercar out there. Get the Semi out, make actual money, then lose money on every Model 3, but have a subscription service to have monthly income. Kind of how Amazon loses money on the thing people mostly use it for, selling physical stuff, but makes money everywhere else.
- rich-w-big-ego 8y agoYour analysis might make sense if money and profitability and staying solvent was what Elon was most interested in. However, money alone is not the goal; getting us off of oil is the goal. I think that Elon really wanted to make a mass-market car as soon as possible, which explains why he chose to take the harder path of making the mass-market car before the hypercar and the semi's.
- isoprophlex 8y agoThat's impressive. I've read a great many analyses stating Musk'll never succeed in his model 3 ramp up. Let's hope he keeps this up in the coming months. It's a long way to 450.000 vehicles...
- Someone1234 8y ago> I've read a great many analyses stating Musk'll never succeed in his model 3 ramp up. *By the deadline he provided. Which he didn't.
- grecy 8y agoThis means they're now making about 7,000 vehicles total per week (S+X+3), which means they'll make more vehicles in the next 12 months than they have made in the previous 10 years. I'd say they're ramping pretty fast! EDIT: 7,000 per week, not per month, thanks below.
- jacobkranz 8y ago7,000 vehicles per week
- gizmo 8y agoTesla pulled people from the S&X lines to reach their 5000 Model 3 goal. No way they also produced 2000 S&X cars in the past 7 days. In addition, their current death march schedule isn't sustainable. They won't come close to producing 7k cars in any week in July. Tesla needs to spend billions in capex in order to get to 5000 M3 and beyond if they want to produce at a sustainable pace with acceptable quality. Billions they don't have.
- themgt 8y agoMusk just tweeted out: "7000 cars, 7 days" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1013519243030253570 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1013519243030253570
- gizmo 8y agoI stand corrected. Thanks for the update.
- claytoneast 8y agoWhere are you pulling this information from? How do you know it costs billions to produce a 5k line? What quality failings do the currently produced m3s have? Can you substantiate any of this? I'm genuinely curious if you have information that I don't.
- Latteland 8y agoI think people are just making up those numbers. It costs a lot to design and implement new infrastructure, and it will cost much less to use it to make the next 5 or 50k cars than it did to get to 5k a week.
- commandocrypto 8y ago> It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a longer period of time. The scrutiny is incredible. 'nuff said
- chrisper 8y agoDoes quality match the quantity here? I remember Tesla having lots of quality issues (misaligned doors etc)
- ryanhuff 8y agoMine looked good.
- aphextron 8y agoGiven that half of those 5000 are being produced in a tent in the parking lot with summer heat and no AC, I can only imagine.
- raverbashing 8y agoYou can have AC on big tents, and I would be surprised if they didn't as your external 40C could easily become dangerous in a literal greenhouse. At least forced ventilation is needed.
- aphextron 8y ago>You can have AC on big tents, and I would be surprised if they didn't as your external 40C could easily become dangerous in a literal greenhouse. "The tent doesn’t have air conditioning, according to the city documents." [0] It hit 90 in Fremont yesterday... [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-25/the-future-of-tesla-hinges-on-this-gigantic-tent https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-25/the-futur...
- IshKebab 8y agoThere was a video linked of the "tent" and the ends are open, so I don't think AC would work.
- manicdee 8y agoThe video clearly shows the ends are being closed up.
- ArtWomb 8y agoFinally got to drive Model 3 yesterday. A friend received his car a few days ago and let me try it on some suburban streets. Nothing fancy. But I did take it for a mini "drag race" against another buddy's Porsche 911. Again this was on a residential tree-lined street with kids playing outside. Not exactly fast and furious. But it definitely kept pace that first eighth of a mile ;) In my humble opinion it outclasses all similar rides: Audi A4, Mercedes C Class, BMW 325, etc. And with charging stations popping up in every supermarket, office park, highway rest area, etc. It may rapidly become the brand of choice for young, urban commuting professionals.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoA friend of mine and I used to “race” (drive fast on public roads) together in high school. One day he was driving fast on his own, and when he came around a corner he saw kids in the road. He swerved and missed them. He hit a tree and died. Drive safely off the track.
- ArtWomb 8y agoAm sorry to hear that, TaylorAlexander. This was not like that. We cleared the street beforehand, and the kids enjoyed the brief show. Admittedly, even despite the precautions, it felt unsafe. And I will certainly endeavor to keep it on regulation race tracks in the future :)
- rich-w-big-ego 8y agoGood job clearing the lanes before you drove. I'm sure that left an impression on the kids, that you might have wanted to leave on them even if you're behaviour had a risk to it - maybe they'll save up to buy a Tesla or learn about Elon. And the fact that it still felt unsafe shows that you have good judgement.
- tsunamifury 8y agoI find it hard to believe that it would outclass a C-class on interior luxury, a BMW on overall sportiness. I've driven all these cars, and when you get in a Tesla is definitely feels like a significant step down.
- pkaye 8y agoCan anyone tell me why they are taking a long time to ramp up? This is not their first electric car and electric cars are supposed to have a lot fewer components than gasoline engine cars.
- gameshot911 8y agoProducing physical things is hard. Issues crop up every step. Of the way, and any one thing can have big downstream impacts. Just think of the web of supplies chains that feeds into the components that go into a car. And in Tesla's case, throw in the fact that they are still a new company and haven't had decades to iron out all the kinks.
- rootusrootus 8y agoThey've been around 15 years and they bought a modern manufacturing plant purpose built to make cars. They can buy talent. I won't cut them too much slack, supposedly they're worth more than GM. Now prove it.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoUp til now they've only been doing relatively low volume production. I doubt Bently could scale up either and they know a bit about making cars.
- maxerickson 8y agoTesla put an awful lot of time into getting their glorious factory factory rolling. Bentley might just copy existing high volume production lines from the beginning.
- ForHackernews 8y agoElon Musk at one point claimed they were going "school" Toyota in manufacturing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2018/02/16/tesla-thinks-it-will-school-toyota-on-lean-manufacturing-fixing-model-3-launch-would-be-a-start/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2018/02/16/tesla-th...
- smithmayowa 8y agoElon musk stuns again, the only man I can ever probably turn gay for, his passion, drive and persistent to accomplish his goals is worthy to be emulated, even in cases where he missed the bar like the boring technology he at least is trying something unlike the multitude of billionaires doing jack all for the progress of the human race. Big ups to the factory workers too hope they start getting better compensated for their efforts. Edit: Wow people slow down with the downvotes, I'm just an avid elon musk fan expressing my admiration for him.
- kardos 8y agoSo if I calculated correctly that's 4855 per week or 3 percent short. Not bad!
- JUDAS 8y agoMusk has said to appear on Rogan's podcast when production of model 3 hits 5k/w. https://jrelibrary.com/upcoming-guests/ https://jrelibrary.com/upcoming-guests/ https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1005924723983675392?lang=en https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1005924723983675392?lang...
- aphextron 8y agoI really hope Musk would not associate himself with MRA/Alt-Right stuff like that.
- make3 8y agoafaik Rogan is not alt right
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- abledon 8y agoThat will be one of the most entertaining conversations. I love how chill the atmosphere is on that show.
- obscurantist 8y ago"Jamie, pull up the video of the chimp getting run over by a Tesla."
- Luc 8y agoBertel Schmitt on Asymco's podcast was amusingly anti-Musk this week (listen from about minute 37) http://www.asymco.com/2018/06/27/asymcar-44-the-view-from-tokyo-with-bertel-schmitt/ http://www.asymco.com/2018/06/27/asymcar-44-the-view-from-to...
- annerajb 8y agoAmusingly? He has been like that for the past two years.
- williamscales 8y ago"It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a longer period of time." I think this is the million dollar question—was this just a sprint effort to hit a milestone for PR sake or will they produce 5000 next week too?
- stingraycharles 8y agoI think it’s a good question to ask, but it doesn’t mean the milestone was meaningless. Several months ago this would have been unthinkable, and the 5000 deadline was arbitrary anyway.
- meritt 8y ago> Several months ago this would have been unthinkable Unthinkable? Their Q4-16 Shareholder letter [1] (Feb 22nd, 2017) stated: "Our Model 3 program is on track to start limited vehicle production in July and to steadily ramp production to exceed 5,000 vehicles per week at some point in the fourth quarter and 10,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2018." On July 2nd, 2017 Musk forecasted [2] 20,000 per month by December '17. [1] http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1ff901ba-bb25-4264-9153-7aa4c477a5a7 http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1ff901ba-bb25-4264-9153-7aa... [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832
- annerajb 8y agoRight. And his whole timeline shifted right by 6 month when they didn't start production as they expected a few weeks afterwards. Giving this the new estimate is placed to summer 2018.
- meritt 8y agoThe first shift was 3-months, as of Nov 2017 [1]: "We currently expect to achieve a production rate of 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by late Q1 2018". When that was missed, it was pushed back again to Q2-18. It looks like those shifting goalposts have finally been met but for the above poster to call it "unthinkable" is absurd. It's the exact messaging we've been hearing for at least a year and a half. [1] http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/d68bddfe-6f2b-4f8f-bed0-94dd7a49cc0f http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/d68bddfe-6f2b-4f8f-bed0-94d...
- empath75 8y agoLet’s see if they’re actually building 5000 a week after another few weeks or if they just built these in a burst and it’s not sustainable. And let’s see how many returns and recalls there are.
- colordrops 8y agoI don't understand the skepticism. He's not claiming to have built a perpetual motion machine. Even if it were the case that it's just a burst, it demonstrates feasibility. Of course the lines will get augmented and more efficient with time. It's not like there's some law of physics preventing regular deliveries of 5000 cars a week.
- pwinnski 8y agoThe skepticism is simple: Musk has a history of making schedule pronouncements that fall through. He predicted they'd hit this milestone last year, and they didn't. In fact, he predicted they'd be far beyond this milestone by now, and they aren't. And he really, really, really hates it when people point how his broken promises and failed claims, so it's reasonable to expect he might be trying to play with some smoke and mirrors and distract everybody with a one-time hit at 5k, hoping we forget he's late, and that he said that would just be a stepping-stone on the way to 25k/week. Or, you know, it could just be late, and he's on track slowly. But the skepticism is absolutely warranted, and there are probably better odds for the skepticism.
- colordrops 8y agoSkepticism of hitting goals by certain dates are fair. But you are conflating skepticism of promises of meeting milestones with the ability to execute at all. They met the 5000 car a week goal. There was no promise of a date for a consistent 5000 cars a week. Is your claim that you are skeptical that they can ever hit a regular 5000 cars a week?
- shawabawa3 8y ago
- Nokinside 8y ago> It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a longer period of time. When Tesla reached it's 2,000 units per week deadline, they had production line shutdown soon afterwards. Then ramp up again from lower level. Based on their previous numbers I would say that their next 3 month production average will be 60% - 80% of their last peak.
- philipodonnell 8y ago> with the final car rolling off the assembly line on Sunday morning, several hours after the midnight goal set by Chief Executive Elon Musk No, they missed the deadline, twice now. Lot of Muskites in these comments, remember, Tesla failed to meet the same deadline in January and pushed it to June. (EDIT: I've been told they missed this 3 times now, the 5K/wk figure was originally Dec '17, then Jan '18 then Jun '18). When it was clear they would miss again, they put up a third production line in a canvas tent, which the NYT quoted as "never heard anything like this ever" using what Musk tweeted as "scrap we had in warehouses" to build the cars. And even then, and running all three lines 24/7 striving to hit that goal for just 7 consecutive days with the whole world watching... they still came up 150 cars short. (5k/wk / 168 hrs/week = 30/hr * missing the deadline by 5 hours = 150 cars short)
- ChildOfChaos 8y agoOkay Mr negative happy pants, who cares if they needed a tent to reach that goal, they reached it and the tent is not going anywhere.
- drdeadringer 8y agoThis reads like the film "Gung Ho" made reality.
- stcredzero 8y agoWhat about "Tucker?"
- drdeadringer 8y agoThat too would work.
- arthurcolle 8y ago> Elon Musk continues to kill the game
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- timwaagh 8y agopromising news i think. a friend of mine said they would go under. i dont really want them to go under though.
- LoSboccacc 8y agoUnless you are the one to receive the tent assembled model 3. If past rushes are an indicator of the future to be I totally expect a large recall operation following this stunt
- njarboe 8y agoI would guess Tesla announces the 200,000th domestic sale sometime in the next week. They could be hitting their ramp-up to high production of the Model 3 right when they hit the 200k domestic electric car milestone. This also happens to be right at the beginning of a quarter so they can get as many $7500 federal tax credits for their customers as they can. One would guess this is not just some lucky coincidence, but who knows.
- andromeduck 8y agoThat's only for American sales so no reason why they can't ramp production and just export to other markets.
- njarboe 8y agoThat is why I said "domestic sales". They want to hit 200k US sales at the beginning of a quarter and when they have a high production rate. That would be this quarter starting July 1, as they are already very near the 200k limit. It's not reasonable to think they could export the whole next quarter's production of S, X and 3 production without many serious repercussions. One being pissing off hundreds of thousands of US model 3 reservation holders.
- jacquesm 8y agoWhat are the chances that cars from this period will develop above average defects?
- rjplatte 8y agoThere's a pattern from Elon of overpromising, and then pulling through, but way later. I wouldn't be surprised if they're easily staying at a 5000/week production baseline in the next three months.
- rich-w-big-ego 8y agoElon used the same over-promising strategy during the build-up to the start of Model 3 production. Elon promised that Tesla would start producing Model 3s in July 2017, noting that production would not actually start until sometime later; since some supplier somewhere would mess up and miss the deadline (and have themselves fired), they would inevitably be delayed. It's the same thing in this case: promise really aggressively, and be serious about the promise, but understand that Tesla will be delayed by the least lucky, least effective part of the team/production line. This way, Tesla can be aggressive, even though if you go by their promises, they should be _really_ aggressive.
- ycnewbienomore 8y agoI can’t give up my Model 3. Driving any Tesla car is a dopamine hit. You really have to try and drive them to experience it and you’ll be hooked. Many people don’t realize what a refreshing and tremendous difference a smooth and powerful torque curve gives. Seriously forget all the noise about Elon Musk. Try and drive an electric car, which are by far still smoother than gear-shifting gas powered cars, and then try a Tesla.
- pasta 8y agoTesla is not the only brand that creates electric cars. This is all about Elon making clames he could not make true. The danger for Tesla is that people don't want to wait for broken promises anymore and will choose another brand. Edit: for example the Jaguar I-PACE might be very competitive.
- ryanhuff 8y agoIt’s not just being electric. I drove a Prius for several years before getting my Model 3. After now driving the Tesla for a month, I drove the Prius again last week. What an awful car.
- bpd1069 8y agoMy P3D will arrive in 2-4 months -- very excited for the future of transportation, and an end to gasoline/diesel cars. 100 years is a long time without disruption, and couldn't come soon enough. But I love the seeing all the hate here, I wonder if people at the turn of the century reacted the same way when their horse drawn carriages were disrupted.
- rich-w-big-ego 8y agoThe iPace would rival the Model X. The iPace is FAR behind the Model X in all performance measures. The iPace has a manufacturer's estimated range of ~350km, no EPA rated range given. The Model X has EPA rated maximum range of 475km - that's a third party verified range that is 125km above the estimated (and very optimistic) range of the iPace. As far as speed goes, iPace is 4.8s to 100km/h, while the P100D variant of the Model X is 0 - 100km/h in 3.6s, a solid second faster.
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- woodandsteel 8y agoYou know, it is really interesting watching the Musk haters over the years. The more he succeeds in doing what he promised (albeit usually behind schedule), the more they hate him, and the more convinced they become that his present projects will all turn out to be complete failures. It almost makes you think they have some ulterior motive, like they work for the fossil fuel industry, of one of the other rocket launch companies, or a major auto manufacturer, or maybe they bet their life savings on Tesla stock crashing. Any Musk haters out their want to respond? And if you do, be sure to tell us about your past predictions, and if they turned out right or wrong.
- saas_co_de 8y agoyeah, when he crashes and burns it will burn 100 billion dollars and the credibility of the whole tech industry (like Theranos but 100X). There will be a nuclear winter in tech investment after that which sets back legitimate companies with real innovation by years with lasting damage to the global economy. Same story as Uber and why people "hated" on them before the adults cleaned things up (as best as possible). These con artists are shitting in the water for everyone else which has direct financial impact. Not hate, just money.
- rich-w-big-ego 8y agoI think there's something to this argument. Elon actually realizes this part himself: when he crashes and burns it will burn 100 billion dollars and the credibility of the whole tech industry Elon has stated publically that it would be "really bad" (his words) if Tesla fails, because Tesla will then serve as an example of why electric cars will never work, and from that point it will be 10x harder to create an EV startup - to say nothing of the investment crater that's leftover from their death. However, I don't understand the rest of the comment regarding the "con artists" and how this is at all like Uber.
- woodandsteel 8y ago>if Tesla fails, because Tesla will then serve as an example of why electric cars will never work, and from that point it will be 10x harder to create an EV startup Except that during the last two years all the major car companies have started big EV programs, and in China, the world's largest car market, the government has gone all-in on pushing EV's. So no matter what happens with Tesla, EV's are here to stay. In fact the experts say that when batteries get cheap enough around 2025, the whole market is going to swing in their favor.
- woodandsteel 8y agoYou know, when the Model 3 came out and terrible production difficulties meant they were producing only 200 cars a month, the Tesla-is-a-scam people told us that the company would never get production much above that. But actually it has been improving production at a steady rate, and is now at least close to the promised 5,000 a month. So the Tesla-is-a-scam believers were quite wrong.
- scarejunba 8y agoTSLA has been public a long time. The guys who shorted it are losing money. The guys who say it's a scam but don't short it are probably bullshitting.
- dlp211 8y agoOr don't believe you can time the market. You can be bearish on a company and still think shorting it would be a disaster. The market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
- scarejunba 8y agoYeah, but their predictions have no predictive value at that point so I’m just going to ignore them.
- ourcat 8y agoWould you trust a car built in a hurry?
- Robotbeat 8y ago7000 cars in a week. 5000 Model 3s.
- tardo99 8y agoI wouldn't want to drive a car built in a tent at breakneck pace to prove to investors how fast they could build cars. Not for me.
- jiggliemon 8y agoTesla is still maturing as a company; more to the point, they’re maturing as a manufacturer. While other companies would order whole componants from vendors - Tesla will only order parts - and assemble in house. For instance - Toyota will order brake assemblies. While Tesla orders guards. Toyota will order a door - and Tesla a door panel. Even worse - Tesla has a history or delivering third parties sub-par China made tooling; and expecting 2-3x performance out of it - when in actuality their sub-par tooling will reduce efficiency. Trying to save money on tool manufacturing isn’t where mature companies cut corners. Trusting vendors to look after their own interests is a good practice (provided those vendors have a proven record) Eventually Tesla will work it’s way into understanding that it’s core competencies are IP, design, and marketing - and leave the micro manufacturing to third parties. A 6mo miss in production on one vehicle isn’t a sign of the times for a company with a 10yr road map. The markets aren’t super forgiving, but I think this will all get smoothed out as Tesla grows up.
- adventured 8y ago> The markets aren’t super forgiving Tesla's stock is 40% above its 52 week low and was just near its all-time highs two weeks ago. That's pretty forgiving. Must drive the bears crazy.
- Ryudas 8y agoOne thing I don't see people mentioning too much, but tesla numbers are great for electric cars, but they're tiny, tiny compared to something like ford. I don't get why people assume tesla can negotiate similar prices for these things as other manufacturers can. I don't think they can. Who says it's cheaper for tesla to order like the big manufacturers do?
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- bpd1069 8y agoSo much insecurity in these comments. Hilarious. I hope you didn't buy into the shorts thesis.
- pooya13 8y agoLeave it to CNBC and HN to take such a success story by Tesla and turn it on its head to call it a failure. 1- Emphasizing the 5hr delay as opposed to the almost 5k figure WHEN THEY THEMSELVES SAID A FEW MONTHS AGO THAT TESLA WON'T PRODUCE MORE THAN 2k PER WEEK 2- Accusing Tesla of having low production quality in their tent line without any evidence 3- Criticizing Tesla for not being able to produce performance and dual versions, then when they do criticizing them for selling those before cheaper options when that is what any sane company would do 4- ... Honestly it is baffling to me that you guys keep being proven wrong over and over again, yet you keep insisting that Tesla will fail. If you really believe Tesla is doomed I suggest you start shorting them (and let me know how it works out for you!).
- dayaz36 8y agoNot surprised the only sane and accurate comment is grayed out at the bottom of the thread. HN is filled to the brink with anti-tesla shill bots. The astroturfing is so obvious it's comical. That's why I don't ever trust HN comments..
- dang 8y agoThe community is obviously divided about this. That's not the same thing as "astroturfing". The guidelines ask you not to insinuate that without evidence, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dayaz36 8y agoLook at the comments. It's 90% anti-tesla and all the pro-tesla comments get down voted into oblivion. So the community is not "divided" it seems...Statistics is my evidence. The extreme slant and voting behavior of all Tesla threads, mixed with debunked misinformation peddled by oil and gas industries being presented as fact pervasively in these threads is plenty of evidence
- detaro 8y ago
- loourr 8y agoThis is such a horribly biased and negative article.
- Proven 8y agoThe quality of those tent cars must be terrible Watch out for a huge spike in returns and bad PR
- chriselles 8y agoHitting 5000 Model 3 Units in a single surge week is an anomaly, until it becomes a repeatable and sustainable pattern. And a pattern that includes low/no rework, because building 5000 units a week is one metric, building 5000 high quality units with no expensive rework is another metric entirely. Questions: Why would someone work in a non air conditioned tent under high stress when they could earn the equivalent wage working across the road in an air conditioned McDonalds? What impact will the major step down in Solar City/Tesla have in commingled Tesla finances? Why is Bloomberg’s Tesla tracker showing a fast flattening(rather than accelerating) production trend? Back in 2016 at GSB we were supposed to get 80 minutes with Musk in class, but it turned into possibly the first “sleep at the end of the factory line” narratives. Am I the only one who things a fancy tent is a modern equivalent of a Potemkin Vilage? Fast, cheap, good. Pick one today, maybe two later. I find Tesla requiring $1000 deposit holders to contribute an additional $2500( for a combined $3500 converted into an advance payment no longer deposit) interesting. At Amazon in the very early days we had 100% float from publishers for 30-60 days for a 20% gross profit operation. Tesla’s attempt at the same is 5% float for 3-6 months for a -20% net profit operation. It’s like using a single dish sponge to absorb a negative cashflow tsunami. Making stuff is hard. Making stuff at industrial scale is super duper hard.
- greglindahl 8y agoDo you have a source for Tesla assembly line workers being paid the same wage as McDonalds workers?
- chriselles 8y agoHmmmm.... I couldn’t actually find a McDonald’s that paid the same as the $15 starting rate for Tesla production specialist/hourly as found on Glassdoor. My bad! But I did find In ‘n Out Burger that offered the same.