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“The industry” also had decades of time to perfect their process, and afaik there isn’t some giant knowledge-sharing system in place for new manufacturers to ge

“The industry” also had decades of time to perfect their process, and afaik there isn’t some giant knowledge-sharing system in place for new manufacturers to get all the insights of “the industry”. A new car manufacturer is going to have issues in fit and finish for the first few years regardless as they figure out their tooling process. I’m sure quality was sacrificed to some extent, everyone does it whenever they can, but I wouldn’t expect a new company to be at the same level as one that’s been doing it for decades.

vladvasiliu 4y ago
But aren't most components actually sourced from third-parties? In which case, their experience with the traditional manufacturers could be reused. The French manufacturers, for example, don't produce their own seats. I don't expect the auxiliary (as in not engine / drivetrain related) components to be radically different just because they're attached to an EV-powered car. Or does Tesla actually manufacture everything?
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  Body panel fit is a pretty common complaint with Teslas (and is definitely an issue, my own has gaps in some areas but none that I deemed extreme, I’ve seen some bad ones out there though). That would be an example of something that, IMO, can only be perfected with time. The body panels might be similar to other cars, but it’s something that each manufacturer is going to have different issues with because of the variability. I don’t think I’ve really seen many criticisms of commonly available parts used in Tesla cars. The one big one that comes to mind would be the eMMC recall which, similar to what I said above, Tesla figured out after years of heavy writes to the component. It’s something that could have been avoided had there been some centralized group to give best practices for automotive or industrial development but that just doesn’t really exist.

vladvasiliu 4y ago

But aren't most components actually sourced from third-parties? In which case, their experience with the traditional manufacturers could be reused. The French manufacturers, for example, don't produce their own seats. I don't expect the auxiliary (as in not engine / drivetrain related) components to be radically different just because they're attached to an EV-powered car. Or does Tesla actually manufacture everything?

mynameisvlad 4y ago
Body panel fit is a pretty common complaint with Teslas (and is definitely an issue, my own has gaps in some areas but none that I deemed extreme, I’ve seen some bad ones out there though). That would be an example of something that, IMO, can only be perfected with time. The body panels might be similar to other cars, but it’s something that each manufacturer is going to have different issues with because of the variability. I don’t think I’ve really seen many criticisms of commonly available parts used in Tesla cars. The one big one that comes to mind would be the eMMC recall which, similar to what I said above, Tesla figured out after years of heavy writes to the component. It’s something that could have been avoided had there been some centralized group to give best practices for automotive or industrial development but that just doesn’t really exist.