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Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

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Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#181

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

philipodonnell wrote: post #54

> 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).…

Musk is certainly a self-promoter in the vein of P.T. Barnum. It's gotten to the point of irritation. But you can't deny he's changed the car industry.

A company's true function is to benefit society. Tesla has done that, so he gets a win from me. He's done it by taking chances and thinking outside the box. The tent is an example. Most companies would have given up but they did not.

20 years from now Tesla might not be alive but we will see its impact on the car industry. Very cool, Musk.

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#182

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

Robotbeat wrote: post #173
williamscales wrote: post #21

"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?

This was the first time they hit a peak of 5000 model 3s. Undoubtedly, this was at their limits right now, but they're STILL ramping up, so it won't be their last, either, and soon (months) will be at 7000-8000 M3s per week at a peak rate. I just want to point out one thing: hustle is valuable. Not all companies can sprint like this when they need to.

I've been at companies that could hustle, and hustled. I'm not sure it's valuable. In one case, our hustle was a waste, as a dependency was late. In another, our hustle was a success, and we launched to the world.

In both cases, me and colleagues made the same amount of money, experienced a degree of burnout, and if anything taught the company they can do it again if they want. Hustling at a sustainable pace? Sure. Sprinting, like death marches, just burns employees.

I would resist commenting, but I know those Tesla employees won't be getting a huge bonus or extra time off. I wonder how well it will go for them the next time.

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#183

Post by withdavidli »

gizmo wrote: post #124
panarky wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine that today is July 1, 2020. Looking back I see three scenarios. 1) It's clear now that the company is a sham and Musk is a snake-oil salesman. It's all smoke, mirrors, bubblegum and baling wire. After hitting 5000 cars per week one time, they never reached that level again. The company had to do a punishingly dilutive capital raise just to get 6 months more runway, and the company's market cap is now $6 billi…

Why should Tesla be worth 600B if they produce 2 million cars a year? Toyota makes 10M cars per year and has a market cap of less than 300B. Future growth is already baked into Tesla's current valuation of 60B. They're not making any money today (in fact they're losing billions) but they have a high market cap because they might become profitable years from now. Once (if) they become a mature car manufacturer their v…

>Once (if) they become a mature car manufacturer their valuation multiple will go way down.

Somewhat answered your own question . It's if the market values Tesla as a mature company or a continues to value it as a growth company. When have we seen Elon rest with a successful product? Tesla is more than just cars. And Elon's answer to Gali (hyperchange YouTube channel) question during earnings about moats states his mindset clearly. He's about innovation. Innovate faster than competitor always. If Tesla can be cash positive, Elon will do what Bezos does. Demand that as much money as possible is reinvested. They're not going to be like Apple with tons of money sitting on the side.

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#184

Post by duncanawoods »

agumonkey wrote: post #106
mhb wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

endurant ?

sorry, frenchism, I meant endurent

Endurant was fine but its so rarely used that it sounds off. It is more conventional to say "he has been resilient" or that "he has endured".

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#185

Post by wellboy »

shafyy wrote: post #115
panarky wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine that today is July 1, 2020. Looking back I see three scenarios. 1) It's clear now that the company is a sham and Musk is a snake-oil salesman. It's all smoke, mirrors, bubblegum and baling wire. After hitting 5000 cars per week one time, they never reached that level again. The company had to do a punishingly dilutive capital raise just to get 6 months more runway, and the company's market cap is now $6 billi…

You think there is a 10% chance that Musk is snake-oil salesman and a sham?

He's not a snake oil salesman, but he could be over his head in this one.

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#186

Post by inferiorhuman »

Theodores wrote: post #161
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Bentley is making ~9000 cars per year with ~3000 employees. Tesla is making ~100k cars per year with ~37k employees (not counting all the subcontractors). That's exactly the same ratio, and it's bloody awful compared to large-scale car manufacturers. E.g. Toyota has 10x the number of employees as Tesla but makes 100x as many cars. Even if next year Tesla production is 5000 cars per week all year, they will stil…

Exactly. The Bentley thing would be just a badge, in fact now there is very little of their SUV being 'made in England', it is done in some Skoda factory somewhere. But how much of a Tesla is Tesla? Don't large parts come from suppliers, e.g. all the seats from Lear corp? Or did they re-engineer those too? I think the Ford F150 truck is the benchmark, in the U.S. there are 3000-4000 made a week. The price starts arou…

> Don't large parts come from suppliers, e.g. all the seats from Lear corp?

One of the problems for Tesla is that they make a bunch of things in-house that other manufacturers don't (e.g. seats).

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-still-figuring-out-the-model-3...

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#187

Post by Someone »

williamscales wrote: post #21

"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?

Looking at historical data:

- 2,425 model 3’s in Q4 2917, about a third (793) of them in the last week of 2017 (http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...)

- 9,766 model 3’s in Q1 2018, about a fifth (2,020) of them in the last week (http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...)

So, the Q1 average was about equal to that last week of 2017, but only because of a massive sprint (20% of production was in the last week of the quarter)

If that pattern has repeated itself, we should see about 26,000 model 3’s produced in Q2, 5,200 of which in the last week.

Also, based on these data points, they won’t produce 5,000 next week, but next quarter’s sprint will bring the average there.

I wonder what the cost of reaching that milestone is. That extra factory wasn’t free, and they either are driving their personnel into the ground or they had to hire and pay a lot more people (possibly even both, as new people being hired will need training)

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#188

Post by jiggliemon »

Tesla 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.

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#189

Post by inferiorhuman »

colordrops wrote: post #45
pwinnski wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 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…

Skepticism 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?

> Skepticism 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.

One of the things from the Jalopnik piece that blew my mind was this:

> For other tasks, the reliance on robots has proved a headache. For months, Tesla engineers struggled to get a robot to guide a bolt through a hole accurately to secure part of the rear brake. They found a maddeningly simple solution: Instead of using a bolt with a flat tip on its threaded end, engineers switched to a bolt with a tapered point, known as a “lead-in,” that can be guided through the hole even if the robot is a millimeter off dead center, Mr. Moravy said.

Tesla is reinventing the wheel, so, yes there's going to be some doubt about their ability to execute. To my untrained eyes using the wrong bolt seems like a total rookie mistake. Even if not... Tesla spent months trying to thread a bolt. That's time and effort they could have spent on higher value propositions like fit and finish.

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-still-figuring-out-the-model-3...

Re: Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week

#190

Post by aplummer »

austenallred wrote: post #127
philipodonnell wrote: post #54

> 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).…

OK, sure, but call it 4850 of 5000 when everyone says there wasn't a prayer of making it is pretty remarkable. Call it 97% of the way. The fact that they built out a tent and hustled 24/7 to hit the goal is impressive to me. Overall it's pretty classic Tesla/Musk. Predict the absolutely impossible, get 97% of the way there, and regardless of how you slice it the only thing that's not impressive is the facxt that they…

Yeah agree, I see no difference between 4850 and 5000 - people are so hung up in other comments on calling this a failure. It shows it’s possible, the rocket just missed the landing a bunch of times, nobody cares about that now.
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