4 ms·

Tesla's $25,000 Car Means Tossing Out the 100-Year-Old Assembly Line

helsinkiandrew 3y ago
https://archive.ph/wekz9 https://archive.ph/wekz9
bell-cot 3y ago
Wikipedia suggests that "100-year-old" and "pioneered by Henry Ford" are more folklore than fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#History And assembling ships & submarines from large, prefabricated sections was pretty routine in WWII. (It'd be nice if Tesla can manage this, but no bets.)
al_borland 3y ago
This doesn’t sound like that new of an idea. I’ve read about the big 3 having various sub components assembled and brought into the final assembly factory decades ago. On a smaller scale, I worked in a factory 20 years ago making some automotive components. Even for that part, there were parts they were made on the side, that were assembled, and those assembled parts were used as inputs to the main production line. I can’t read the whole article (the archive link wasn’t working), so I’m not sure if I’m missing something, but this seems pretty normal, unless Tesla is taking it to a new extreme in some way.
- sixQuarks 3y ago
  Yeah, it's a bit confusing what they're doing that's so different. They still have to assemble everything together at the end.
  - neuralRiot 3y ago
    Probably they will ship a flat-packed kit Ikea style and the customer assembles it itself. The final quality of the car wouldn’t be affected though.
sixQuarks 3y ago
From the article: "Mathew Vachaparampil, CEO of Caresoft, an engineering and automotive benchmarking firm, said his company’s engineers spent 200,000 hours building a digital replica of Tesla’s unboxed platform" 200K hours? This can't be right. If the engineers are paid $50/hour, that is a cost of $10 million just to create a digital replica of the process?
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago
  > 200K hours? This can't be right. If the engineers are paid $50/hour, that is a cost of $10 million just to create a digital replica of the process? I don't think that's so farfetched - It was rumoured that Tesla bought a Nissan Leaf to take apart and see why it was cheap, and there are companies that buy products including cars, to tear apart and write reports on materials, components, production techniques, and costs for other companies (couldn't find the example I remember)
  - sixQuarks 3y ago
    Vehicle breakdowns is a different thing. Monroe and associates is one that breaks down a lot of electric vehicles and they say it costs about $1 million for a full breakdown. Again, that’s a physical breakdown of a product for other companies that pay tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for the full report. This company claimed to do a digital recreation. I don’t even know what that means.
    - helsinkiandrew 3y ago
      Wouldn’t a “full report” these days include a 3d model/digital recreation?
      - brianwawok 3y ago
        No I don’t think the generic report you can buy from Monroe for a million bucks has any digital files. Just words and drawings. I have obviously never bought one, but I saw them flipped through.

https://archive.ph/wekz9 https://archive.ph/wekz9

Wikipedia suggests that "100-year-old" and "pioneered by Henry Ford" are more folklore than fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#History And assembling ships & submarines from large, prefabricated sections was pretty routine in WWII. (It'd be nice if Tesla can manage this, but no bets.)

al_borland 3y ago

This doesn’t sound like that new of an idea. I’ve read about the big 3 having various sub components assembled and brought into the final assembly factory decades ago. On a smaller scale, I worked in a factory 20 years ago making some automotive components. Even for that part, there were parts they were made on the side, that were assembled, and those assembled parts were used as inputs to the main production line. I can’t read the whole article (the archive link wasn’t working), so I’m not sure if I’m missing something, but this seems pretty normal, unless Tesla is taking it to a new extreme in some way.

sixQuarks 3y ago
Yeah, it's a bit confusing what they're doing that's so different. They still have to assemble everything together at the end.
- neuralRiot 3y ago
  Probably they will ship a flat-packed kit Ikea style and the customer assembles it itself. The final quality of the car wouldn’t be affected though.

sixQuarks 3y ago

From the article: "Mathew Vachaparampil, CEO of Caresoft, an engineering and automotive benchmarking firm, said his company’s engineers spent 200,000 hours building a digital replica of Tesla’s unboxed platform" 200K hours? This can't be right. If the engineers are paid $50/hour, that is a cost of $10 million just to create a digital replica of the process?

helsinkiandrew 3y ago
> 200K hours? This can't be right. If the engineers are paid $50/hour, that is a cost of $10 million just to create a digital replica of the process? I don't think that's so farfetched - It was rumoured that Tesla bought a Nissan Leaf to take apart and see why it was cheap, and there are companies that buy products including cars, to tear apart and write reports on materials, components, production techniques, and costs for other companies (couldn't find the example I remember)
- sixQuarks 3y ago
  Vehicle breakdowns is a different thing. Monroe and associates is one that breaks down a lot of electric vehicles and they say it costs about $1 million for a full breakdown. Again, that’s a physical breakdown of a product for other companies that pay tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for the full report. This company claimed to do a digital recreation. I don’t even know what that means.
  - helsinkiandrew 3y ago
    Wouldn’t a “full report” these days include a 3d model/digital recreation?
    - brianwawok 3y ago
      No I don’t think the generic report you can buy from Monroe for a million bucks has any digital files. Just words and drawings. I have obviously never bought one, but I saw them flipped through.