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High rework rates are indicative of overall quality issues. Issues caught and flagged for rework are the obvious ones, not all of the defects. A high rework ra

High rework rates are indicative of overall quality issues. Issues caught and flagged for rework are the obvious ones, not all of the defects. A high rework rate is a huge red flag for at-scale manufacturing and says that something is wrong. It seems like this should be obvious. How healthy is a software engineering environment where 80% of the commits fail at the tail end of the development pipeline and require fixes? I’ve never seen an org that bad.

jayd16 8y ago
>High rework rates are indicative of overall quality issues Maybe, maybe not. We can look at the actual quality of the new cars instead of trying to guess.
- OmarIsmail 8y ago
  No, my brother in law works in vehicle manufacturing and rework at the end of the line is a bad thing to be avoided. To fix issues they often have to take parts of the car apart and they're often not put back in precisely the same location.
- jryan49 8y ago
  Weren't Teslas creating a reputation of being unreliable over the last few years? I remember seeing a lot of stories on HN of people trying to get their teslas fixed, and how sometimes it would take months.
  - xkjkls 8y ago
    There's definitely a number of anecdotes about Model 3 quality that hasn't been positive. Also, the insurance rates, and overall lemon reports haven't been positive either.
  - jungturk 8y ago
    That's generally due to parts availability (and is still an issue for lots of folks). For instance, mine had body damage from a road hazard - not an issue of quality, but definitely needing repair. It took a few weeks before the parts were available. As you can imagine, if your car isn't drivable in the interim that's a big pain and rental bill, but if it is drivable then you just have to wait longer.
  - Nokinside 8y ago
    Previously Tesla manufactured low volume luxury models. People who buy those want the performance and style and just accept that the car needs more repair. Tesla also paid huge sum per car for repairs/recalls and recall insurance. I think the total was something like $2000 per car. Model 3 is completely different beast. If they succeed manufacturing it 5000, then 10,000 per week, the quality must be up if they want to make money.
- wongarsu 8y ago
  There are two numbers at play here: the frequency of production mistakes, and the percentage of mistakes that get caught and reworked. The high rework rate could be because they catch a lot of mistakes. That would clearly be a good thing. But given what we actually observe from their cars it seems more likely that they catch mistakes with an average success rate but produce more mistakes than normal. That means both more rework, and lower quality because of all the uncaught mistakes.
  - jayd16 8y ago
    Everyone seems up in arms but this is the only point I'm making.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > We can look at the actual quality of the new cars instead of trying to guess. A lot of people have declined their Model 3's at the dealerships due to issues, even knowing that means they go back onto the wait list. There are tons of threads about this issue on the Tesla Reddit forums. Less so for Tesla's other vehicles.
- threeseed 8y ago
  These issues are important because who cares about the quality of their cars if Tesla goes out of business. And you can’t sustain profitability with this level of rework.
- slededit 8y ago
  If you've ever done work on the dash you'll know that it never goes back on "just right" there is always a little bit of extra rattle introduced. A lot of the body is designed for one way assembly. Rework inevetably is lower quality than manufactured right the first time.
- foobiekr 8y ago
  That’s not how quality assessment works. You don’t assess something as having a high observed defect rate and then conclude that the likely situation is that non-observed defects are rare or dismiss the implication as “well maybe not.”
wemdyjreichert 8y ago
Quality issues? Hmm, possibly related to bumpers falling off in rain.

jayd16 8y ago

>High rework rates are indicative of overall quality issues Maybe, maybe not. We can look at the actual quality of the new cars instead of trying to guess.

OmarIsmail 8y ago
No, my brother in law works in vehicle manufacturing and rework at the end of the line is a bad thing to be avoided. To fix issues they often have to take parts of the car apart and they're often not put back in precisely the same location.
jryan49 8y ago
Weren't Teslas creating a reputation of being unreliable over the last few years? I remember seeing a lot of stories on HN of people trying to get their teslas fixed, and how sometimes it would take months.
- xkjkls 8y ago
  There's definitely a number of anecdotes about Model 3 quality that hasn't been positive. Also, the insurance rates, and overall lemon reports haven't been positive either.
- jungturk 8y ago
  That's generally due to parts availability (and is still an issue for lots of folks). For instance, mine had body damage from a road hazard - not an issue of quality, but definitely needing repair. It took a few weeks before the parts were available. As you can imagine, if your car isn't drivable in the interim that's a big pain and rental bill, but if it is drivable then you just have to wait longer.
- Nokinside 8y ago
  Previously Tesla manufactured low volume luxury models. People who buy those want the performance and style and just accept that the car needs more repair. Tesla also paid huge sum per car for repairs/recalls and recall insurance. I think the total was something like $2000 per car. Model 3 is completely different beast. If they succeed manufacturing it 5000, then 10,000 per week, the quality must be up if they want to make money.
wongarsu 8y ago
There are two numbers at play here: the frequency of production mistakes, and the percentage of mistakes that get caught and reworked. The high rework rate could be because they catch a lot of mistakes. That would clearly be a good thing. But given what we actually observe from their cars it seems more likely that they catch mistakes with an average success rate but produce more mistakes than normal. That means both more rework, and lower quality because of all the uncaught mistakes.
- jayd16 8y ago
  Everyone seems up in arms but this is the only point I'm making.
Someone1234 8y ago
> We can look at the actual quality of the new cars instead of trying to guess. A lot of people have declined their Model 3's at the dealerships due to issues, even knowing that means they go back onto the wait list. There are tons of threads about this issue on the Tesla Reddit forums. Less so for Tesla's other vehicles.
threeseed 8y ago
These issues are important because who cares about the quality of their cars if Tesla goes out of business. And you can’t sustain profitability with this level of rework.
slededit 8y ago
If you've ever done work on the dash you'll know that it never goes back on "just right" there is always a little bit of extra rattle introduced. A lot of the body is designed for one way assembly. Rework inevetably is lower quality than manufactured right the first time.
foobiekr 8y ago
That’s not how quality assessment works. You don’t assess something as having a high observed defect rate and then conclude that the likely situation is that non-observed defects are rare or dismiss the implication as “well maybe not.”

wemdyjreichert 8y ago

Quality issues? Hmm, possibly related to bumpers falling off in rain.