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The assembly and inspection stages involve surprisingly more manual labor than I had imagined.
I'm always surprised by the amount of human labor involved, I tend to think of manufacturing as mostly robots but there are numerous manual steps.
It's not clearly shown in this, but the majority of the work is manually adding parts.
If you like this, there's an excellent 30 minute video following the Dacia Duster production line - https://youtu.be/32eWkuIHLoE?si=T-gud6AG1PCD1gep It's much more relaxed, with little commentary - and really shows every step. Having done some very rudimentary work around manufacturing and testing, it's pretty incredible to see how much work - jigs, robot programming, test software etc - goes into the manufacturing m…
Excellent video of the BMW i3 production line: https://youtu.be/pa5_tudyAF8 ?
What a tragic car. Discontinued in 2021. The material costs of carbon fiber are dirt cheap, so in theory it ought to beat aluminum for car structure. But once you get away from simple tubes, which can be fully automated, layup ends up being most of your costs. (Not helped by the fact that i3 carbon parts were made on the opposite side the of the planet and shipped to Germany)
BMW's business case for the car had to be "once we make enough of them, costs will come down", but that never happened.
The assembly and inspection stages involve surprisingly more manual labor than I had imagined.
Speaking of inspection, I was actually wondering what they do with rejected units. It would seem hard to fix problems once the car is already assembled, so do they just trash them?
There are only a few problems that would lead to a scrap job - for instance if the body of the car is damaged to the point that they would have to cut and weld new panels, that vehicle would be scrapped.
But even for scrapped vehicles, all of the components are removed to re-build that vehicle.
Basically anything besides serious body damage can be repaired. But you are correct that it is hard to fix problems. Most parts are added in one minute or less - including the engine assembly! But it takes much, much longer than one minute to remove an engine.
- The paint doesn't "dry" per se, it is baked on. Usually at least twice - once for primer, once for mid, top and clear coat. Sometimes more than twice - 1 prime, 2 mid, 3 top and clear.
- Clear Coat is incredibly important for surface finish durability, it's not just for appearance
- Quality is baked in at the process level, not just inspected at the end of the process.
- Everything is much more complicated than portrayed, and there's way more going on, but it is only a 5 minute video after all.Earlier quoted context omitted.
Elon was surprised too. The model 3 was supposed to have a fully automated line. He couldn't make it happen. Industrial robots are bad at wiggling stuff into place, and hopeless at handling error cases. https://qz.com/1261214/how-exactly-tesla-shot-itself-in-the-...
And quite frankly, saying Elon being the only surprised by this is only a mild exageration.
I'm always surprised by the amount of human labor involved, I tend to think of manufacturing as mostly robots but there are numerous manual steps.
Elon was surprised too. The model 3 was supposed to have a fully automated line. He couldn't make it happen. Industrial robots are bad at wiggling stuff into place, and hopeless at handling error cases. https://qz.com/1261214/how-exactly-tesla-shot-itself-in-the-...
Industrial robot usage and other manufacturing innovations are a big reason they are leading the industry in manufacturing cost and speed. Other manufacturers are starting to emulate a lot of the things they are doing with structural battery manufacturing, casting big parts, etc. The likes of VW and others are (by their own admission) behind and struggling with the number of parts, amount of manual work, etc. It might not be as automated as Elon Musk would like but it is pretty impressive.
It will be interesting to see what they do with their upcoming cheaper model. He seems to be hinting at the notion that further manufacturing improvements are going to be a big part of that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excellent video of the BMW i3 production line: https://youtu.be/pa5_tudyAF8 ?
@5:27 Note the strange welded-aluminum frame the worker sets into the battery box. That's because the i3's battery is cooled by the AC system! What a tragic car. Discontinued in 2021. The material costs of carbon fiber are dirt cheap, so in theory it ought to beat aluminum for car structure. But once you get away from simple tubes, which can be fully automated, layup ends up being most of your costs. (Not helped by t…
The i3 was an interesting car so, and BMW for some reason fumbled the head start the car got them.
Interested in an informed comment on the paint application part. How do they keep those spray rooms clean from paint? I noticed the robots were covered up to protect against the spray but the floor was pristine.