Official Tesla Model 3 thread

[EVDRIVER]

This happens to all car makers, I'm surprised there has not been more with Tesla's "rush" and lack of refinement of their delivery process.

My 2011 LEAF had at least 5-6 missing clips, many harnesses that were not attached, itms that were crooked, really bad paint, loose nuts and screws, etc. I know some people were missing parts on LEAFs all together. All human error. Because it is a Tesla it is of course big news as it if is unique to them only.

I don't think anyone was suggesting this was big news (well, maybe IEVS, as they published the story). Unlike the bumpers falling off, which most definitely qualifies.

Other cars have had similar bumper issues and it's not a bumper that is falling of it is a plastic cover which it appears in one case was someone driving in a foot of water. The fact that such things are put on "blogs" and then posted here seems to indicate they are a big deal to some people. Again 99% is nonsense.

 

[GRA]

This happens to all car makers, I'm surprised there has not been more with Tesla's "rush" and lack of refinement of their delivery process.

My 2011 LEAF had at least 5-6 missing clips, many harnesses that were not attached, itms that were crooked, really bad paint, loose nuts and screws, etc. I know some people were missing parts on LEAFs all together. All human error. Because it is a Tesla it is of course big news as it if is unique to them only.

I don't think anyone was suggesting this was big news (well, maybe IEVS, as they published the story). Unlike the bumpers falling off, which most definitely qualifies.

Other cars have had similar bumper issues and it's not a bumper that is falling of it is a plastic cover which it appears in one case was someone driving in a foot of water. The fact that such things are put on "blogs" and then posted here seems to indicate they are a big deal to some people. Again 99% is nonsense.

Whether or not other cars have had this issue (please provide some examples if poss.), and whether it was the bumper or just (as you correctly noted) the cover doesn't make it acceptable - these were two brand new cars which lost there bumper covers, in similar, fairly common circumstances. As I said upthread, if it's just bad QC it's embarrassing but not expensive, whereas if it's a design issue it's both.

 

[GRA]

Via IEVS:

Tesla Model 3 Line Workers Sent Home Early: Production Targets Not Met

https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-production-targets-not-met/

According to a report released by Business Insider, three Tesla employees revealed that the company sent them home early last Wednesday.

Allegedly, the workers stated how the target goals of the day were not met. The events allegedly happened on the GA3 line – the main production assembly line for the Model 3. Additionally, according to the source, roughly 211 Model 3 vehicles were fully assembled & completed before they were sent home three and a half hours early from their typical 12-hour shift. . . .

The worker told Business Insider how a shift is only sent home early because they’ve been hitting its production goal for a period of time, or if there are production issues. According to the source, these production issues relate to events that are keeping them from producing more vehicles in the desired timeframe. For example, there’s a chance one of the two GA3 production lines might be sent home early if there’s a production issue that’s been stalling the progression of assembling vehicles for hours. However, in this case, both production lines were sent home. And according to the workers, Tesla did not hit its Model 3 production goals that day.

According to the source, Tesla’s internal target is to produce 300 vehicles per shift. There are two 12-hour shifts dedicated to Tesla Model 3 production. But, allegedly last Wednesday, the production lines at GA3 only managed to produce 211 vehicles during the day shift, thus missing the daily target.

Tesla declined to comment either on why the workers were sent home or on their internal targets.

As always, we should take caution in assuming any of these any of these alleged claims from “sources” are 100% accurate.

Aside from the article subject, I wonder when and if Tesla is going to go over to 3 shifts instead of routinely working people 12 hours/day. Companies love to do this, because paying existing employees 4 hours of OT is cheaper than paying H&W, sick leave, holidays and vacation pay to additional employees. It's not as if these people are entitled to a life outside of mind-numbingly repetitive assembly line work.

 

[lpickup]

Via IEVS:

Tesla Model 3 Line Workers Sent Home Early: Production Targets Not Met

https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-production-targets-not-met/

According to a report released by Business Insider, three Tesla employees revealed that the company sent them home early last Wednesday.

Aside from the article subject, I wonder when and if Tesla is going to go over to 3 shifts instead of routinely working people 12 hours/day. Companies love to do this, because paying existing employees 4 hours of OT is cheaper than paying H&W, sick leave, holidays and vacation pay to additional employees. It's not as if these people are entitled to a life outside of mind-numbingly repetitive assembly line work.

As usual, the story seems to raise more questions than it answers (well, it seems like there was really no question TO answer). It seems to me that obviously there was some kind of equipment malfunction on GA3 that caused it to shut down, because clearly they did not hit their target and were allowed to go home early as a result. And without a statement as to what that issue was, there really isn't a whole lot to talk about there. I like InsideEVs, but it just seems like without more information, there isn't much of a story here, and who knows how common this is, etc. It even could be something as simple as a routine maintenance cycle. If they are working 24/7, there would have to be SOME downtime for this. Lots of unanswered questions I probably would have asked the employee who came forward with the "tip".

To your point though, Guy, I would think that Tesla would not be ready to move back to 8 hour shifts until the 8 hour shift can achieve what the 12 shift is able to and they can get to a more traditional work schedule and still achieve the same work throughput. Yes, they could move to a 3-shift/day operation, but as you said, there are downsides to that, and I think the goal to achieve their business objectives was to be able to produce the 5K/week (or 6K/week?) using a traditional work schedule/labor rates.

In my industry (chip manufacturing), Alternative Work Schedules (AWS) are pretty much the norm on the manufacturing floor. 2 12-hour shifts/day 7 days a week. Yes, it can be rigorous on the employees, but they usually have a 3-4-4-3 rotation. 3 days on, 4 days off, 4 days on, 3 days off, so over a two week rotation you get some pretty good breaks in there. Some people actually prefer that and the pay premium that an AWS offers. I have no idea if that works in the more physically demanding auto industry, but maybe being a Silicon Valley enterprise, that might be the new normal.

Finally, isn't Tesla running 24/7? Does the 300 vehicles/shift/line goal add up? With 2 shifts on 2 lines, that's 1200 vehicles/day, which would get you to 6000 after only 5 days. Either that or I am reading it wrong, and the 300 vehicles/shift is for both lines. But then you would have 600/day and even after 7 days that only gets you to 4200 so that can't be it. Assuming 7 day operation, 2 lines, 2 shifts, and a goal of 6000/week, that's only 214 vehicles per shift. Which, oddly enough, is right around the 211 vehicle number reported by the source. Yet another thing about this story that doesn't add up!

 

[GRA]

Some discussion of plans versus actuality (which is apparently 2 12 hour shifts): https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-factory-work-schedule.113200/

And here's an article from several months back (previously linked somewhere) about the plan to go over to 3 shifts: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannm...-a-sign-of-trouble-not-progress/#6978ffa4350d

 

[GRA]

Here's a GCR article that is more positive and also gives more details of issues:

New report inside Tesla factory says Model 3 production improving

https://www.greencarreports.com/new...sla-factory-says-model-3-production-improving

. . . Galliers and Ellinghorst reported that the new GA4 assembly line constructed in a tent adjacent to the main factory now accounts for about 20 percent of Model 3s produced, all of them high-end all-wheel-drive cars. . . .

They noted that both Model 3 assembly lines still looked to be having teething problems with frequent shutdowns, especially on the highly automated main assembly line (GA3). They said the main problems seemed to be related to equipment calibration, which would not require the kinds of large capital expenditures to fix that would concern investors.

They said they saw production rates of a car every 65 seconds or less—Tesla's reported target—on the main body assembly line over the course of some shifts, but that stoppages interrupted this rate on other shifts.

They note that conveyor belts designed to move parts from one floor of the main assembly line to another have been replaced by 120 workers unboxing the parts and hauling them manually, because the weight of the parts tripped up the conveyor belts.

One challenge they noted on the main assembly line was the density of robots and conveyor belts which left very little room inside the factory for workers or visitors to move around.

The team also noted that quality issues such as inconsistent panel gaps seem to be improving, and said the cars they saw being produced had gaps about on par with German luxury sedans. In the factory's body stamping process, "All the observations which we were looking for were fulfilled," they said.

They noted the factory should be able to produce 7,000 to 8,000 cars per week without any reconfiguration, once "teething problems" such as calibration stoppages are ironed out. . . .

 

[lpickup]

Thanks for the update Guy. It fills in the blank in my math. If in a 7 day period, GA3's target is 4200, and GA4 is 20% of that (840) that's what gets us to 5000/week. Seems like they need to focus efforts on GA4, from an assembly line maturity standpoint (probably more low hanging fruit there) as well as from a demand side. So they would need to double throughput from 840/week to 1800/week to achieve 6K/week targets.

They note that conveyor belts designed to move parts from one floor of the main assembly line to another have been replaced by 120 workers unboxing the parts and hauling them manually, because the weight of the parts tripped up the conveyor belts.

From the quote above, seems like a poorly engineered solution. I guess Tesla's plan to design the machine that builds the machine using sophisticated CAD software wasn't taking everything properly into account!

 

[GRA]

Via IEVS:

Tesla Model 3 Is Road Trip Champ: Beats Model S, X, Says ABRP

https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-road-trip-champ/

Info provided by the people responsible for A Better Route Planner (ABRP), thanks to owners running the app continuously during trips. Lots of graphs.

 

[lpickup]

Via IEVS:

Tesla Model 3 Is Road Trip Champ: Beats Model S, X, Says ABRP

https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-road-trip-champ/

Info provided by the people responsible for A Better Route Planner (ABRP), thanks to owners running the app continuously during trips. Lots of graphs.

Yes, I am blown away at the efficiency of the Model 3. A recent trip from Charlotte, NC to Durham (151 miles) was done at 202 Wh/mi (~5 mi/kWh in LEAF terms) without any particular hypermiling effort. We did get caught in traffic for a bit, and had to wait for a really long train s we were heading out of town, which resulted in an average speed was 59mph, but while on the highway I had the cruise set to 72mph. Out of habit I almost got off the highway at the exit I used to get off to visit a CHAdeMO station that served as the SECOND charging stop of this trip in my LEAF.

I did put the aero covers on the wheels for the trip.

 

[cwerdna]

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/08/21/tesla-model-3-reworked-report/ points to https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-hit-model-3-target-by-reworking-thousands-of-cars-2018-8

Internal documents show that Tesla had to rework more than 4,300 of the 5,000 Model 3 vehicles it built during the last week of June, when it hit its critical production target.

Within the auto industry, cars that make it through a manufacturing process without requiring rework are part of a factory or line's "first pass yield," or FPY.

During the week of June 23, Tesla reworked a little over 4,300 Model 3 vehicles, according to internal documents. Each car took an average of 37 minutes to repair.

That means that Tesla had a first pass yield of about 14% for Model 3 production the first week of June, or that 14% of the vehicles made didn't need rework.

"A competitive plant will pass 80%-plus vehicles that do not require repair. I would say the average plant is about a 65-80% range," said Ron Harbour, a consultant at Oliver Wyman who founded and writes "The Harbour Report," a worldwide guide to manufacturing.

 

[palmermd]

This whole thing is much ado about nothing. This story of rework also meshes with the story about cars piling up and no demand for them. They are both designed to be fud regarding Tesla. One of the suppliers was probably late delivering a part to Tesla and so all the cars got built without the missing part. They we're piling up in the lots as they built them without the missing part and when the part finally arrived they installed it on all the cars "reworking" them. None of this means there is no demand nor does it indicate a quality problem. It's just how you build cars.

 

[EVDRIVER]

This whole thing is much ado about nothing. This story of rework also meshes with the story about cars piling up and no demand for them. They are both designed to be fud regarding Tesla. One of the suppliers was probably late delivering a part to Tesla and so all the cars got built without the missing part. They we're piling up in the lots as they built them without the missing part and when the part finally arrived they installed it on all the cars "reworking" them. None of this means there is no demand nor does it indicate a quality problem. It's just how you build cars.

It's just a matter of time before you find missing parts on your car and it catches fire when it is sparked by an exploding cell. The failing drive system may blow a hole in the floor or one of the thousands of dying 12V batteries will leave you stranded. . Should you be lucky enough to avoid that you may get contaminated from the sewage residue in the wheel wells or be arrested from drugs hidden in the bumper when it falls off. Just look at all the burnt Model 3 cars in the junk yards, does that not say enough to convince you? Good luck even finding a super charger.

 

[jlv]

It's just a matter of time before you find missing parts on your car and it catches fire when it is sparked by an exploding cell. The failing drive system may blow a hole in the floor or one of the thousands of dying 12V batteries will leave you stranded. . Should you be lucky enough to avoid that you may get contaminated from the sewage residue in the wheel wells or be arrested from drugs hidden in the bumper when it falls off. Just look at all the burnt Model 3 cars in the junk yards, does that not say enough to convince you? Good luck even finding a super charger.

You say that like it's a joke, but I won't follow behind a Model 3 on the highway because I don't want my windshield being shattered when a magnet flies off the motor. :lol:

 

[Zythryn]

It's just a matter of time before you find missing parts on your car and it catches fire when it is sparked by an exploding cell. The failing drive system may blow a hole in the floor or one of the thousands of dying 12V batteries will leave you stranded. . Should you be lucky enough to avoid that you may get contaminated from the sewage residue in the wheel wells or be arrested from drugs hidden in the bumper when it falls off. Just look at all the burnt Model 3 cars in the junk yards, does that not say enough to convince you? Good luck even finding a super charger.

You say that like it's a joke, but I won't follow behind a Model 3 on the highway because I don't want my windshield being shattered when a magnet flies off the motor. :lol:

Now THAT is a joke

 

[scottf200]

http://www.teslafudtracker.com/

FUD is an acronym for fear, uncertainty and doubt. When it comes to Tesla it seems some media sources have ramped up production on an anti-Tesla narrative. The purpose of this tracker is to keep score on which sources and authors publish FUD that can be ignored and which keep at least some balance in their reporting.

The tracker currently works by counting common FUD keywords and phrases in titles and summaries of articles but may later change to a machine learning model. Contributions are welcome.

 

[EVDRIVER]

Very funny.

 

[lpickup]

http://www.teslafudtracker.com/

Not buying it's accuracy. It lists seekingalpha.com as having only 5 FUD articles? They have 5 per day! Or maybe the authors have figured out a way to bypass the FUD keyword detectors at the heart of this site.

I would encourage any of you to actually click to the teslafudtracker site and note that they made it look just like the Bloomberg Model 3 production tracker. Awesome!

 

[EVDRIVER]

http://www.teslafudtracker.com/

Not buying it's accuracy. It lists seekingalpha.com as having only 5 FUD articles? They have 5 per day! Or maybe the authors have figured out a way to bypass the FUD keyword detectors at the heart of this site.

I would encourage any of you to actually click to the teslafudtracker site and note that they made it look just like the Bloomberg Model 3 production tracker. Awesome!

I agree, the seeking Alpha is WAY low. I'm surprised some on this site don't have a category :lol:

 

[lpickup]

http://www.teslafudtracker.com/

Not buying it's accuracy. It lists seekingalpha.com as having only 5 FUD articles? They have 5 per day! Or maybe the authors have figured out a way to bypass the FUD keyword detectors at the heart of this site.

I would encourage any of you to actually click to the teslafudtracker site and note that they made it look just like the Bloomberg Model 3 production tracker. Awesome!

I agree, the seeking Alpha is WAY low. I'm surprised some on this site don't have a category :lol:

If they actually came up with original content rather than just posting links to seekingalpha, they might.

I think the teslafud site should complete their parody of the Bloomberg tracker by including a Tesla's Stock Price vs. Jim Chanos's Prediction graph like the final chart on the Bloomberg Tracker.

 

[SalisburySam]

Just to change the subject but not the thread, I noticed my Model 3 does NOT have the obnoxious VSP when I'm in reverse. Either it isn't installed, isn't working, or isn't enabled. I'm OK with any of those situations. So much for the argument about quiet cars absolutely needing these noisemakers.

By the way, in reverse I've driven into oh, say, absolutely no one in my LEAF or Model 3.