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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

#161

Post by Theodores »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #118
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up til now they've only been doing relatively low volume production. I doubt Bently could scale up either and they know a bit about making cars.

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 around the price of the Model 3 and then goes up and up with options.

Plus you get a lot of truck for that compared to a car, and due to the Chicken Tax there are incentives to buy the things.

Recently there was a fire in a supplier plant that affected the F150, with JIT they had to close the lines. But then they shipped the dies to England and restarted making the vital parts so production is back on. Really Musk should not be making promises if even the mighty Ford F150 truck can be brought to a production halt due to one fire in one supplier factory.

That story is quite interesting and right now there is a 747 flying those parts back from England to make sure Ford can keep on getting their $40 billion in revenue from selling that truck.

https://eu.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/16/ford-launch...

I would be intrigued to know the numbers of vehicles per employee for the F150. Note how there is zero export potential for the F150 for a multitude of reasons whereas the Tesla products are definitely hot in international markets.

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

#162

Post by manicdee »

saas_co_de wrote: post #39
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?

They definitely cannot. These numbers are completely gamed within an inch of outright fraud.

So when they do maintain this rate for the next few weeks, is that still within an inch of fraud?

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

#163

Post by notlob »

njarboe wrote: post #145
notlob wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quote the text here? For the life of me I can’t find the section you’re referencing. I’ve heard the “timing production to match tax credit” thing before and it doesn’t make sense to me, hence why I’m trying to track down the primary source.

The way the tax credit works is that a car company's customers get $7500 US tax credit for the first 200k Tesla type electric cars. Then begins the phase out. First the $7500 tax credit remains for the rest of the quarter when the 200k US sales was hit and the following quarter (so between 3 and 6 months). Then the tax credit goes in half for 2 quarters and then 1/4 the original for another 2 quarters. Seems strange…

> > > They timed production to maximize federal tax credits for US consumers.

This is what is confusing me: if the credits are timed to domestic sales (so international sales don’t affect the timing of the tax credit phase out) what does this have to do with production?

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

#164

Post by jjeaff »

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…

>I see Teslas everywhere now.

Meaning you live in one of 4 coastal cities. Teslas are exceedingly rare everywhere but the wealthiest cities.

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

#165

Post by manicdee »

IshKebab wrote: post #46
raverbashing wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have AC on big tents, and I would be surprised if they didn't as your external 40C could easily become dangerous in a literal greenhouse. At least forced ventilation is needed.

There was a video linked of the "tent" and the ends are open, so I don't think AC would work.

The video clearly shows the ends are being closed up.

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

#166

Post by woodandsteel »

You know, when the Model 3 came out and terrible production difficulties meant they were producing only 200 cars a month, the Tesla-is-a-scam people told us that the company would never get production much above that.

But actually it has been improving production at a steady rate, and is now at least close to the promised 5,000 a month. So the Tesla-is-a-scam believers were quite wrong.

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

#167

Post by cma »

colordrops wrote: post #27
empath75 wrote: post #22

Let’s see if they’re actually building 5000 a week after another few weeks or if they just built these in a burst and it’s not sustainable. And let’s see how many returns and recalls there are.

I don't understand the skepticism. He's not claiming to have built a perpetual motion machine. Even if it were the case that it's just a burst, it demonstrates feasibility. Of course the lines will get augmented and more efficient with time. It's not like there's some law of physics preventing regular deliveries of 5000 cars a week.

> it demonstrates feasibility.

Not if they shut down or heavily impacted Model S/X production to achieve it.

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

#168

Post by claytoneast »

gizmo wrote: post #102
grecy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means they're now making about 7,000 vehicles total per week (S+X+3), which means they'll make more vehicles in the next 12 months than they have made in the previous 10 years. I'd say they're ramping pretty fast! EDIT: 7,000 per week, not per month, thanks below.

Tesla pulled people from the S&X lines to reach their 5000 Model 3 goal. No way they also produced 2000 S&X cars in the past 7 days. In addition, their current death march schedule isn't sustainable. They won't come close to producing 7k cars in any week in July. Tesla needs to spend billions in capex in order to get to 5000 M3 and beyond if they want to produce at a sustainable pace with acceptable quality. Billions…

Where are you pulling this information from? How do you know it costs billions to produce a 5k line? What quality failings do the currently produced m3s have? Can you substantiate any of this? I'm genuinely curious if you have information that I don't.

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

#169

Post by manicdee »

Nokinside wrote: post #69
verelo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone actually buy a $35k version? I tried to spec one recently and couldn’t get anything i felt was acceptable for under 68k

If nobody buys them, Tesla is in trouble. There is limited market for 68k cars.

The new production line is entirely devoted to the AWD and performance models. Tesla won't be producing the $35k model until next year, the market for $68k Model 3 is bigger than the market for $35k Model 3.

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

#170

Post by manicdee »

ForHackernews wrote: post #38
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up til now they've only been doing relatively low volume production. I doubt Bently could scale up either and they know a bit about making cars.

Elon Musk at one point claimed they were going "school" Toyota in manufacturing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2018/02/16/tesla-th...

Gotta give him credit for trying.
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