Live data from Hacker News

Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

latimes.com

101–110 of 119 posts

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#101
post #61
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not into cars, sorry if it’s a stupid question. Does Tesla have that much valuable research ? I thought their manufacturing process came from external actors with experience in “legacy” car makers. Same with their batteries technology, didn’t big players like Panasonic intervene to bring their experience ? Regarding AI or software they don’t seem to be ahead of the other players either. From a distance, Tesla loo…

Tesla invented battery management technology to scale up bundles of small lithiun ion cells. This requires significant engineering to get right: cells charge and discharge at different rates, heat must be managed and failed cells taken out of the stack. Nobody was doing this commercially when they built the first roadster. IIRC they shared this tech with Toyota pretty early on. This is all basic electrical engineerin…

>Tesla invented battery management technology to scale up bundles of small lithiun ion cells.

I dispute that claim. They may have created a solution for use in their vehicles but did not "invent" anything, they just upscaled existing solutions and used existing know-how.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#102
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If MOU were jack shit, people wouldn't be doing business there It’s a great place to do business. Their MoUs and LOIs are worth jack shit.

This is not some mom & pop shop, when multibillionaire companies sign billions of dollars of MOU, it has to be worth something. You could argue MOU is jack shit in general, but saying MOU is jack in China but China is great to do business with does not a computer, considering some of the largest companies in the world are signing MOUs and going ahead with their project just fine.

> You could argue MOU is jack shit in general

MOUs from non-mainland companies may get you financing. MOUs from mainland Chinese companies will not. They have a high rate of falling through, and are most properly treated as prettified e-mails. Different commercial cultures.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#103
post #46
post #18

Tesla should be very wary of the very real threat from corporate espionage in China. Brining a factory to China would allow a bad actor to really get into enterprise and create even better clones. Tesla wouldn't be able to keep up financially if Chinese manufactures built cars using Tesla research resources. side thought: Maybe TESLA turns into a research company that sells its IP to manufactures instead of actually…

So China can steal Tesla's method of sloppily making fewer cars at a loss? If they have a secret sauce it surely isn't inside the factory.

Upvoted for funny.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#104
post #32
post #18

Tesla should be very wary of the very real threat from corporate espionage in China. Brining a factory to China would allow a bad actor to really get into enterprise and create even better clones. Tesla wouldn't be able to keep up financially if Chinese manufactures built cars using Tesla research resources. side thought: Maybe TESLA turns into a research company that sells its IP to manufactures instead of actually…

I'm doubtful this will happen, based on what we've seen in the car industry in the past. Foreign car companies have had to build cars via Chinese joint ventures for decades, and as yet, not a single Chinese car company has seen any large success outside of China.

It's happening, though. I think some Chinese car markers are eyeing the international market, while Geely just bought Volvo and is introducing new brands (Polestar, Lynk&Co) on its basis.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#105
post #86
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re currently at about 350,000/year, so not too far off.

Using your numbers that would mean increasing their output by over 40% without a new factory... I'd say that is very much "far off". I mean they had to make a tent to try and convince Wall Street they can make 5,000 cars in a week. In reality they make nowhere near 350k cars a year. They built 41k in Q2 which was their most ever by a long shot. They celebrated the 300,000th shipped Tesla in Q1 2018...

They’ve increased their numbers by about 250% over this time last year. Another 40% isn’t that much by comparison.

At the end of Q2 they hit 5,000 Model 3s per week, plus 2,000 S/X. That’s an annualized rate of 350,000.

And yes, they haven’t even built 350,000 cars yet. The acceleration of their manufacturing over the last few months has been amazingly fast.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#106
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway5752 is referring not to China, but rather the USA, as having “single party control of a government that is hostile to clean tech and initiating a trade war with the worlds largest consumer market for the next 50 years“.

That makes complete sense, and I totally missed it. Sorry, and thanks!

No, it's odd to think of the US in those terms and still feels strange. I understand!

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#107
post #18

Tesla should be very wary of the very real threat from corporate espionage in China. Brining a factory to China would allow a bad actor to really get into enterprise and create even better clones. Tesla wouldn't be able to keep up financially if Chinese manufactures built cars using Tesla research resources. side thought: Maybe TESLA turns into a research company that sells its IP to manufactures instead of actually…

"Chinese car" will end up becoming synonymous with bad AI and fundamentally unsafe.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#108
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla invented battery management technology to scale up bundles of small lithiun ion cells. This requires significant engineering to get right: cells charge and discharge at different rates, heat must be managed and failed cells taken out of the stack. Nobody was doing this commercially when they built the first roadster. IIRC they shared this tech with Toyota pretty early on. This is all basic electrical engineerin…

>Tesla invented battery management technology to scale up bundles of small lithiun ion cells. I dispute that claim. They may have created a solution for use in their vehicles but did not "invent" anything, they just upscaled existing solutions and used existing know-how.

Thats how all invention works. Scaled up versions of existing tech.

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#109
post #32
post #18

Tesla should be very wary of the very real threat from corporate espionage in China. Brining a factory to China would allow a bad actor to really get into enterprise and create even better clones. Tesla wouldn't be able to keep up financially if Chinese manufactures built cars using Tesla research resources. side thought: Maybe TESLA turns into a research company that sells its IP to manufactures instead of actually…

I'm doubtful this will happen, based on what we've seen in the car industry in the past. Foreign car companies have had to build cars via Chinese joint ventures for decades, and as yet, not a single Chinese car company has seen any large success outside of China.

China decided to change its rules on this point last April[1]. Not sure of the whole overall political reasons, but I imagine it has somewhat to do with the stronger US stance against China on trade issues with the new US president. Telsa was not going to build the plant under the previous rules and now that they are changed are going forward.

[1]https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-to-build-factory-in-...

Re: Tesla plans China factory that can make 500,000 vehicles a year

#110
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your numbers that would mean increasing their output by over 40% without a new factory... I'd say that is very much "far off". I mean they had to make a tent to try and convince Wall Street they can make 5,000 cars in a week. In reality they make nowhere near 350k cars a year. They built 41k in Q2 which was their most ever by a long shot. They celebrated the 300,000th shipped Tesla in Q1 2018...

They’ve increased their numbers by about 250% over this time last year. Another 40% isn’t that much by comparison. At the end of Q2 they hit 5,000 Model 3s per week, plus 2,000 S/X. That’s an annualized rate of 350,000. And yes, they haven’t even built 350,000 cars yet. The acceleration of their manufacturing over the last few months has been amazingly fast.

Production stats:

Q2 2018: 53,339 Q2 2017: 25,708

Still impressive, but not an increase of 250%.

http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/updat...

http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...

Post reply on HN