Really would have loved if these were animated gifs, even if just 3-5 second loops. It can be hard to parse what you’re even looking at without seeing it move.
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Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#22How do you decide on which brand of robots to use? I remember seeing videos from the Model S production line having only KUKA robots, but for the Model 3, I only see FANUC.
Does anyone know approx. how much one of these costs?
https://www.fanucamerica.com/home/products-services/robots/f...
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#23I understand that Musk comes up with his radical innovations by starting out with first principles and then reasoning from there. I wonder what was his specific set of thought processes that lead to the radically different approach that Tesla is taking to manufacture the Model 3.
That machines could build machines faster, cheaper, and better than humans. It was more about extreme evolution in that aspect, but then it allowed for a very different design in the factory itself since it didn't need to accommodate humans everywhere.
In reality, it seems it might have been too much technological complexity all at once. Traditional assembly lines have decades of optimization with talent readily available. It's the inevitable bugs of any new tech approach, compounded by timeline, talent, and cash pressures.
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#24>But relying on suppliers got Tesla into trouble with the Model X, when its engineers designed an extremely difficult-to-make “monopost” seat and an impossible-to-hit timeline. I chuckled a bit when I read this. I can relate to this a lot. For awhile I worked at a university in the mechanical engineering department machine shop. I like to think I know when I'm talking about when I say that everyone makes this mistake…
I think I read somewhere with Tesla that a problem with outside suppliers is that you can't always negotiate the price down to a competitive place. Specifically if the supplier has a patent or something that gives them leverage in pricing. I'm not sure I'm wording what I mean correctly.
You worded it perfectly. Here in the US, we call that “the free market“.
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#25How do you decide on which brand of robots to use? I remember seeing videos from the Model S production line having only KUKA robots, but for the Model 3, I only see FANUC.
Does anyone know approx. how much one of these costs? https://www.fanucamerica.com/home/products-services/robots/f...
"List prices for FANUC’s most common robots vary from $25,000 for the simplest, least expensive M1iA, 4 axis “spider” robot with .5kg capacity to the M2000/1200 6 axis robot with 1200kg capacity topping out at over $400,000 list price."
Here's quite a funky one on ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fanuc-R-2000iB-210F-Robotic-w-Servo...
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#26How do you decide on which brand of robots to use? I remember seeing videos from the Model S production line having only KUKA robots, but for the Model 3, I only see FANUC.
Does anyone know approx. how much one of these costs? https://www.fanucamerica.com/home/products-services/robots/f...
The robots often are sold as a lease or payment plan, so typically the big robot vendors try to win big accounts where they will outfit many things and essentially they pay a monthly fee that includes access to have the robot vendor come out and tune things up for you.
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does anyone know approx. how much one of these costs? https://www.fanucamerica.com/home/products-services/robots/f...
The robots often are sold as a lease or payment plan, so typically the big robot vendors try to win big accounts where they will outfit many things and essentially they pay a monthly fee that includes access to have the robot vendor come out and tune things up for you.
> the big robot vendors
I feel that I have been embracing the future my whole life, yet I was not quite prepared for that phrase in regular use.
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#28I understand that Musk comes up with his radical innovations by starting out with first principles and then reasoning from there. I wonder what was his specific set of thought processes that lead to the radically different approach that Tesla is taking to manufacture the Model 3.
> radically different approach that Tesla is taking to manufacture the Model 3. I thought they gave up and went back to more traditional methods?
Only partially, with bits and pieces being re-automated as kinks get worked out.
They’ve postponed full on automation until the Model Y.
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
The robots often are sold as a lease or payment plan, so typically the big robot vendors try to win big accounts where they will outfit many things and essentially they pay a monthly fee that includes access to have the robot vendor come out and tune things up for you.
> the big robot vendors I feel that I have been embracing the future my whole life, yet I was not quite prepared for that phrase in regular use.
This isn't exactly new, Unimation was already selling a bunch of robots to the auto industry in the 1960s.
Re: Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory
#30How do you decide on which brand of robots to use? I remember seeing videos from the Model S production line having only KUKA robots, but for the Model 3, I only see FANUC.
I know how TESLA decides . . . .. they bought Grohmann Engineering, a German firm that specializes in automated manufacturing.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/8/13561146/tesla-acquisitio...