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"But Musk is said to want to start construction extremely soon and aims to have Model Y vehicles coming out of the plant by the end of the year." That is just delusional.
maybe. but they’re getting better at building the machine that builds the machine that builds the machine.
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I think the rule with Elon Musk is all his estimates are extremely optimistic and you need to multiply them by two or three to get closer to reality. But I'm sure it serves a purpose in giving his employees an aggressive target to aim at. Even if they miss it, at least they probably got there sooner.
> But I'm sure it serves a purpose in giving his employees an aggressive target to aim at. Even if they miss it, at least they probably got there sooner. That only works until the employees quickly realize the estimates are impossible bullshit, and stop taking them seriously.
On one hand, they don't need to do as much as they did in Giga Shangahi because they already have the Model Y specific bits in Fremont, which they can ship to the new factory.
They just need to replicate all the Model 3 stuff the Model Y uses from Giga Shanghai and install the Model Y specific stuff they ship in from Fremont, which should be faster than Giga Shanghai.
On the other hand, they only have 6 months left to do this and we're in the middle of a pandemic.
What people neglect to consider is that Tesla now owns Perbix and Grohmann, which is very advantageous when building new factories.
I'm astounded that they ever tried to operate a factory in the Bay Area to begin with. Forget about regulations and taxes. The real issue is cost of living. You're going to have to pay all employees 2-3X what you'd have to pay them elsewhere, and it's not like they're keeping any of that. It's all going to rent/mortgage payments.
Building a new factory in Texas was not an option.
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Would it be any different than how it is currently? I think it really could just reduce transportation cost I suppose?
Not really? They still have to ship them out of Texas to another state that will allow them to sell directly. Then customers will have to drive back to Texas.
Building a factory in Texas worked for Toyota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Motor_Manufacturing_Tex...
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That seems like the kind of thing Texas might change if Tesla does actually move production there in a major way.
Not likely. Crony capitalism that helps the major car dealership owners but limits economic progress For all. Collectively, these owners will likely donate far more to political campaigns to keep the rules in place than Musk can.
Are you telling me that if they bring a plant into Texas and start churning out cars with 'Made In Texas' on every one of them, that there isn't going to be a mutiny on whatever bullshit economic contraption was used to rationalize not directly selling products Made In California?
You might be right, who knows, but I wouldn't bet on it.
I get the feeling this was already planned. Freemont doesn't have much spare land to increase manufacturing capacity. California has to be more expensive (Labor, Regulations) than manufacturing in Texas. Even if you'd need to fly your R&D team between Texas and California, you'd still be saving money
The thought that they might pay even less in Texas is depressing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the rule with Elon Musk is all his estimates are extremely optimistic and you need to multiply them by two or three to get closer to reality. But I'm sure it serves a purpose in giving his employees an aggressive target to aim at. Even if they miss it, at least they probably got there sooner.
Musk rarely gives estimates, but targets (used to motivate people, for instance, and to overcompensate any unexpected issue or mistake). I'm looking for his most ambitious and oldest targets and so far, most of them have been reached/exceeded. The most important one being the 500,000 production vehicles run rate for 2020 and 35 GWh battery production for Gigafactory Nevaga. Multiplying that duration by 2 or 3 would b…