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Sorry this is actually nonsense. Seriously, just nonsense. Go and actually watch the disassembly and analysis done by Munro engineers. They do detailed analysi

Sorry this is actually nonsense. Seriously, just nonsense. Go and actually watch the disassembly and analysis done by Munro engineers. They do detailed analysis and costing. And Tesla is routinely doing things nobody else is doing that is highly effective. Their use of aluminum casting is industry leading. Their electronics are industry leading by a wide margin. They are great at working with large glass panels. Their battery packs are industry leading. Their heating-cooling loop is fantastic. I could go on. Just go and look a Tesla looks under the frunk and then look at how a VW ID.4 looks. That doesn't mean they are the best at everything. Their suspensions are not as good. Their fit and finish is not as good. Again, there is more one could mention. To just flat say that Tesla it worse at manufacturing the their competition is simply not true. If it were true they could never achieve anywhere close the margin they got. And this margin is achieved with pure EV, something most companies barley make profit on. Tesla is also amazing at iteration. They are iterating faster then Toyota. In 2017 Model 3 had a lot of issues, if you look at Model 3 in 2021 the internals are very different. > But Tesla has figured out a ton of clever ways to cut corners (mostly by having a customer base that accepts a very tiny static lineup of car models) A the old 'all their costumers are idiots' defense that can't be backed up by anything substantial. > and have gone all out on economies of scale. They are pretty small car company still in terms of volume. And centralizing and vertically integrating production is a valid and effective industrial practice. They had better margin then the competition while having 1/2 or less production on a architecture so just saying 'economics of scale' is just nonsense.

legitster 4y ago
I think you misread my tone. I'm commending Tesla for being smart about their manufacturing strategy. > They are iterating faster then Toyota. In 2017 Model 3 had a lot of issues, if you look at Model 3 in 2021 the internals are very different. To put it in perspective in these 4 years, Toyota iterated for every single model year across 14 different model. And on top of that released all new platforms for the Yaris, the Camry, the Rav4, the Corolla, the Land Cruiser, the Tundra, and the Avalon.
bumby 4y ago
>Tesla is also amazing at iteration. They are iterating faster then Toyota. In 2017 Model 3 had a lot of issues, if you look at Model 3 in 2021 the internals are very different. This actually undermines your point to a certain extent. Tesla is great at iterating but that often comes at a cost to quality. It is very hard to manage reliability when parts and suppliers are constantly churning. "Older models typically fare better in reliability, as companies tend to make tweaks and redesigns to solve known problems, while sticking with the same parts and suppliers. But Tesla deviates from this approach, Fisher explained. “At almost random times during the year Tesla will switch major components, suppliers or sensors and other units. The more you change, the greater the chances you’re going to have some problems.” [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/18/consumer-reports-2021-auto-reliability-survey-how-tesla-evs-fared.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/18/consumer-reports-2021-auto-r...
- panick21_ 4y ago
  The method of consistently updating was actually advocated by manufacturing guru who saved the US car industry, Edwards Deming. He advocated for this to improve quality. The engineer who pointed out how good Tesla is doing with this iteration worked with Deming at Ford. "5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs." - Edwards Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming This does make version and revision management and service harder, but that you can manage with software and its worth the cost. However, what you say is partially true, its not all positive. If you endlessly make the same car with very little change you can also hit very high quality and reliability. That is why sometimes cars like Jeep look good in quality rankings. Overall however, I think there is good reason for iteratively interdicting changes.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bumby 4y ago
    This comes from someone who's previously worked as a process and reliability engineer, and one of those was in automotive manufacturing. One of my degrees is in industrial engineering, so I'm very familiar with Deming. What you're saying is true, with one important distinction we may disagree on: >"but that you can manage with software" This is a take that seems accurate on it's surface but belies a lot of additional problems. Leaning on software for improving reliability can be a dangerous path. It's tempting because it's cheap and easy to iterate on. Software doesn't wear out like mechanical components. But software makes reliability pretty tough when you constantly iterate because it tends to fail at interfaces. Not only do the number of these interfaces tend to grow exponentially, they are notoriously difficult to test fully. Nancy Leveson has some good articles that demonstrate this distinction. A automotive example from my own experience is a comparison with mechanical vs. electrical robots used in the stamping process of body panels. Plant managers like electrical retrofits because they held the promise of being much cheaper to build and modify. But they needed near-constant tweaking of the control system. The number of interfaces causes a lot more failure modes and impacts the reliability. By contrast, a mechanical system is, by it's nature, constrained by mechanical linkages. Once the mechanical system is tuned and working, it works for a long time. Gradually the parts wear, but they tend to be much easier to predict and troubleshoot. Since this thread is about aerospace, you can see where software failure caused catastrophic failures by lulling engineers into complacency about how software can enhance reliability. From Ariane V, to Falcon, to CST-100 all have examples of how software did not fulfill its promises to increase reliability and often it does the opposite. Don't confuse the ability to move a design change faster with an inherent ability to make things more reliable.

legitster 4y ago

I think you misread my tone. I'm commending Tesla for being smart about their manufacturing strategy. > They are iterating faster then Toyota. In 2017 Model 3 had a lot of issues, if you look at Model 3 in 2021 the internals are very different. To put it in perspective in these 4 years, Toyota iterated for every single model year across 14 different model. And on top of that released all new platforms for the Yaris, the Camry, the Rav4, the Corolla, the Land Cruiser, the Tundra, and the Avalon.

bumby 4y ago

>Tesla is also amazing at iteration. They are iterating faster then Toyota. In 2017 Model 3 had a lot of issues, if you look at Model 3 in 2021 the internals are very different. This actually undermines your point to a certain extent. Tesla is great at iterating but that often comes at a cost to quality. It is very hard to manage reliability when parts and suppliers are constantly churning. "Older models typically fare better in reliability, as companies tend to make tweaks and redesigns to solve known problems, while sticking with the same parts and suppliers. But Tesla deviates from this approach, Fisher explained. “At almost random times during the year Tesla will switch major components, suppliers or sensors and other units. The more you change, the greater the chances you’re going to have some problems.” [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/18/consumer-reports-2021-auto-reliability-survey-how-tesla-evs-fared.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/18/consumer-reports-2021-auto-r...

panick21_ 4y ago
The method of consistently updating was actually advocated by manufacturing guru who saved the US car industry, Edwards Deming. He advocated for this to improve quality. The engineer who pointed out how good Tesla is doing with this iteration worked with Deming at Ford. "5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs." - Edwards Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming This does make version and revision management and service harder, but that you can manage with software and its worth the cost. However, what you say is partially true, its not all positive. If you endlessly make the same car with very little change you can also hit very high quality and reliability. That is why sometimes cars like Jeep look good in quality rankings. Overall however, I think there is good reason for iteratively interdicting changes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bumby 4y ago
  This comes from someone who's previously worked as a process and reliability engineer, and one of those was in automotive manufacturing. One of my degrees is in industrial engineering, so I'm very familiar with Deming. What you're saying is true, with one important distinction we may disagree on: >"but that you can manage with software" This is a take that seems accurate on it's surface but belies a lot of additional problems. Leaning on software for improving reliability can be a dangerous path. It's tempting because it's cheap and easy to iterate on. Software doesn't wear out like mechanical components. But software makes reliability pretty tough when you constantly iterate because it tends to fail at interfaces. Not only do the number of these interfaces tend to grow exponentially, they are notoriously difficult to test fully. Nancy Leveson has some good articles that demonstrate this distinction. A automotive example from my own experience is a comparison with mechanical vs. electrical robots used in the stamping process of body panels. Plant managers like electrical retrofits because they held the promise of being much cheaper to build and modify. But they needed near-constant tweaking of the control system. The number of interfaces causes a lot more failure modes and impacts the reliability. By contrast, a mechanical system is, by it's nature, constrained by mechanical linkages. Once the mechanical system is tuned and working, it works for a long time. Gradually the parts wear, but they tend to be much easier to predict and troubleshoot. Since this thread is about aerospace, you can see where software failure caused catastrophic failures by lulling engineers into complacency about how software can enhance reliability. From Ariane V, to Falcon, to CST-100 all have examples of how software did not fulfill its promises to increase reliability and often it does the opposite. Don't confuse the ability to move a design change faster with an inherent ability to make things more reliable.