

Tesla produces 400 model S each week - neuralnetwork
http://automotivediscovery.com/tesla-model-s-attains-weekly-production-benchmark/9216356/

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gamegoblin
I really want Tesla to succeed.

I live in Arkansas and just saw a Chevy Volt in the wild for the first time
about two weeks ago, and they are two years old now.

If Tesla succeeds, it will force the autobehemoths to step up their game,
which will be good for everyone. I'll be interested to see what the old guard
will be able to come up with to match Tesla in the (hopefully) new generation
of auto. There is a lot to be said about having such massive resources to
leverage, so I wouldn't write them off as being out of the game quite yet.

~~~
Shivetya
One item to consider, Tesla is only going the route of battery powered cars.
The majors are investigating multiple different sources, hydrogen, natural
gas, compressed air, battery only, simple hybrid, and series hybrids. So as
for stepping up their game I am not sure what you think they need to do.

There are already a half a dozen or so cars that are full battery powered for
under forty thousand, or less than half the price of the current transaction
prices of the S. The luxury market is safe territory because the margins are
large enough for Tesla to fit within.

As for interior work, I am not sold on a full size touch screen. For the most
part it looks a bit tacky to me, its just too "there". That and I am a dial
person, specifically for radio and such. I just like the idea of feedback.
Sure I could talk to my car and one day that may work when I don't have to
drive it but I am not ready to give up that fun.

~~~
bathat
> One item to consider, Tesla is only going the route of battery powered cars.
> The majors are investigating multiple different sources, hydrogen, natural
> gas, compressed air, battery only, simple hybrid, and series hybrids. So as
> for stepping up their game I am not sure what you think they need to do.

I don't see how that benefits the incumbents. Unfortunately, the realities of
physics and economics (to say nothing about total pollution generated) mean
that there are really only two choices: Burn liquid hydrocarbons; or store
electricity in a battery (or some combination of the two). Tesla is currently
pursing the second option and traditional auto manufacturers are using both.
Hydrogen, natural gas and compressed air have all the limitations of batteries
and more: The technology that goes in the car is more expensive, the
infrastructure is more expensive and exists in fewer places (excluding natural
gas), range is short, and 'refuling' times are long.

About ten years ago, as an undergrad, I worked on an NSF- and DOE-funded
project to use single-walled carbon nanotubes both as a catalyst in hydrogen
fuel cells and for hydrogen storage. Unfortunately, the efficiency gains were
minimal, and I'm not aware of much[1] progress that has been made since (but I
now work in a different sub-field). That means that a practical fuel cell, big
enough to power a lightweight vehicle still costs hundreds of thousands to
millions of dollars (mostly due to the requirement for large amounts of
platinum to catalyze the H2 in to 2H). Frankly, there has been enough money
wasted on pie-in-the-sky projects when there is already-existing technology
that works (lithium-ion batteries).

If you don't trust a random stranger on the Internet, then please trust the
managers of auto companies. Honda has effectively abandoned their FCX Clairity
project because it is cheaper to meet CARB (CA Air Resources Board)
requirements by buying zero-emissions credits from Toyota, Tesla, or GM. The
FCX, by the way, was a hybrid that only used a fuel cell to meet the average
load for electricity and batteries to meet the peak load.

[1] You need _at least_ an order of magnitude better catalyst performance
before you can even _consider_ using PEM fuel cells in a mass-produced car.
Every time I've seen a press release about better fuel cells, they seem to
mention a few percent. At the current rate of improvement, it will take a
quarter of a century before we even solve one of the show-stoppers for
hydrogen cars.

~~~
effn
What do you have against natural gas?

Compressed natural gas/biogas is available today and has been for years, at
prices far below that of electric cars, with none of the range and refueling
issues that electric cars have.

~~~
grecy
If you want to learn more about where it comes from, watch the documentary
"gasland".

Eye-opening to say the least.

~~~
effn
I was merely pointing out that hydrocarbons don't have to be liquid to be a
viable vehicle fuel. Where I live, all the vehicle gas comes from sewage and
municipal waste.

~~~
riffraff
sheer curiosity, where _is_ that you live?

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sasvari

      Jerome Guillen, the company’s director of Model S programs
      previously directed the business business innovation
      department at Daimler AG. He comments, “We are doing things
      in a couple weeks that, at my previous employer, would have
      taken two years.”
    

Knowing quite some people working within the German automobile industry
(mainly BMW) attesting how slow and _corporate_ the decision finding process
is, I think this is what will cause the traditional car manufacturers quite
some headache in the future.

~~~
salimmadjd
On the flip side what these car companies manufacture in 2 weeks will take
Tesla two years to manufacture.

On the other hand, Tesla is not doing the kind of innovation on the automotive
side that would create a meaningful barrier to entry. The big players are all
catching up (already caught up) and are going to chisel marketshare away from
Tesla. IMHO, Tesla will close or sell within two years!

~~~
AdamTReineke
Is there an equal to the Model S? Seems unlikely they'll be closing since
they're profitable and their flagship model has no equal.

~~~
salimmadjd
That's not really a fair point. I think it's better to look at their market
segment. The people who want a nice-looking (luxury) car, roomy with 4 doors
who are environmentally aware. That being said, there are/will be numerous
established players (American, German, Japanese) who will provide a vehicle
that could fulfill this market segment in one way or another.

Keep in mind consumers with certain existing brand loyalty are more likely to
buy from your trusted brand before buying from a relatively unknown car maker.
Especially, one that doesn't have as many dealership footprints around the
country, which further reduce the probability of a sale.

You can make the argument of Ferrari who have a niche market and who have
stayed in the business despite all the competition. However, Ferraris had/have
a long history of racing history and certain brand around handling and
driving. They are targeted to that audience. Tesla sedan is marketed to a
whole different segment that could as easily buy a BWM, GM, MB, VW or Lexus
before they would buy a Tesla.

Tesla is innovative, but their innovation is not something that can hold
everyone else back. I've seen the car and how beautiful the interior and the
center console is, but it's not enough to hold the competition back.

Lastly, Tesla is yet to offer a leasing plan. Nissan is offering an amazing
deal on their Leaf. I looked at it and my projected fuel cost saving was
roughly the same as my lease rate. Meaning I could drive a car for FREE for 3
years.

So now Tesla is going to move to a saturated market and they need to start
adding marketing costs, dealership expansion costs and other unseen expenses
to maintain their sales and suddenly they are not going to have the same
profit margins and are going gradually get squeezed out. Their only hope is to
sell to Toyota or MB who already buy components from tesla.

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stephenhuey
Here's hoping they can find the balance between increasing production and
keeping quality high. Most of these aren't mission critical, but I think only
some early adopters would be ok with all of these reported issues if they
proliferate:

[http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081935_tesla-model-s-
gl...](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081935_tesla-model-s-glitches-
quirks-and-peccadilloes-roundup)

~~~
timdorr
Some of those are fixed in software (4.2 fixes the sunroof issue and deep-
sleep related issues). Some are hardware issues that Tesla has been resolving
on a case by case basis (door handles and charge ports). The regenerative
breaking issue is a feature. It will reduce the breaking ability if the
batteries are too cold or if they are full (and the standard charge mode only
goes to 90%, so it rarely is a cause). When breaking is reduced (or
acceleration is too), the car shows a dashed yellow line on the current gauge.
So, there is an indicator and you can know to expect the reduced breaking
force.

Regardless, it's by far the best car I've ever owned. Considering the vehicle
didn't exist outside of a CAD program 4 years ago, the minimal number of
issues people have found is amazing. Tesla is a very well-run company and it's
clear quality is their top priority.

~~~
jacquesm
How big a reduction in braking power is it?

Can you notice the difference? Does it do this while you are already braking
and the batteries end up full? (in other words, does the braking action change
while you are braking?)

~~~
chockablock
Any reason they can't just route the current generated when battery is full to
a big resistor/heatsink?

That would seem to avoid the problem of changing braking dynamics, and
potentially save wear on friction brake components (pads, discs, etc)...

~~~
frankus
It's kind of a lot of power (hundreds of kilowatts for a panic stop from
60mph), so a reliable resistor bank would probably add more weight/bulk than
it buys in reduced brake wear.

~~~
nialo
it's not really about the reduced brake wear so much as avoiding the sudden
change in stopping distance when the battery stops charging.

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ChuckMcM
Nice to see, site load load takes forever though :-), 400 / week was their
minimum cut-off [1] (thats 20,000 /year if you work 50 out of 52 weeks a year)
Now they have to do that for a year without a serious glitch to bank enough to
for the next step.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/14/autoshow-tesla-
pro...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/14/autoshow-tesla-profit-
idUSL2N0AJ0GX20130114)

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bjelkeman-again
400 cars per week is 20,800 in a year. That is nearly twice as many as GM made
Chevy Corvettes in 2012, just as an interesting perspective.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette#Production>

~~~
stcredzero
Though the cachet vector is different, the cachet magnitude is about the same,
and many other kinds of utility are greater in the Model S.

In retrospect, that would've sounded like a compelling but seemingly too good
to be true pitch in the pre-Tesla years.

------
codex
Tesla needs to innovate quickly because they're in a bad spot. It turns out
that creating electric vehicles just isn't that hard. BMW has the i3. Nissan
has the Leaf. Ford has the Focus Electric. These are not has good as the
Tesla, but they're much cheaper, and are taking the bottom of the market away.
But most importantly, these manufacturers have non-electric car lines that
they can use to achieve massive economies of scale. Once these manufacturers
decide to do a high end product, Tesla is in a bad way. Tesla can out innovate
these guys easily, but there just isn't much innovation differential in cars
except at the very high end, which is not enough to survive on.

The lesson of Tesla is that you can produce really cool things if you can
throw a ton of money away up front and wave your hands around vulnerability to
established competitors. In this respect the conservative approach of existing
manufacturers towards electrics looks much more prudent than Tesla's high risk
approach.

~~~
crusso
"But others can create/sell cheaper inferior products" has always been the
argument against companies like Apple, Neiman Marcus, Porche, Rolex, etc.

Tesla is in a very good position in the market. They have a hot product,
visionary leadership, good funding, and political tailwinds.

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brianbreslin
Is tesla's factory fully robotic? Or do they still have human labor in the
build process?

~~~
msandford
Lots of humans in the build process. They might have robots making battery
packs but all the engineering on those is done and dusted, probably a decade
ago.

Generally people don't start building/buying robots to do this stuff until the
economics forces it. That probably doesn't happen until they sell a million or
more cars per year.

EDIT: This is factually incorrect as Tesla does employ a lot of automation.
But there are still plenty of people in the loop as well.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Tesla's factory is fully automated, as automated as any other automobile
factory. It is practically impossible to get the necessary level of repeatable
precision without it. <http://www.teslamotors.com/gallery#>

~~~
msandford
I'm not arguing there is NO automation. But it's definitely not FULLY
automated.

My dad did design work for division of Tyco that made syringes. That was fully
automated. 100,000sqft of production and a single janitor automated.

Tesla? Definitely a lot of people visible.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/77735091@N08/7398173016>

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
I reckon Tesla's automation compares well with any other automaker in the same
stage of the product life-cycle. I don't see a complex product such as an
automobile ever being automated to the point of needing only a janitor to mind
the factory. There is no lack of robots, which is the statement that prompted
my response. Robot: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/77735091@N08/7395856658/>
Robots: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/77735091@N08/7351817696/> Robot:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/77735091@N08/7338398440/>

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DEinspanjer
The article site was having trouble serving when I tried to read it, so I'll
just say...

Ugh.. 400 per week just reminds me how long I have to wait before mine is
ready to be delivered. :)

~~~
specto
Lucky, I just recently got a chance to see one at a mall kiosk. It's certainly
a beautiful vehicle. I hope Tesla does well.

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phil
At an ASP of $75k (probably pretty close), that's about $1.5b/yr or about 1/3
their market cap... not bad at all.

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kayoone
So in a few years customers will drive Beta cars which get patched to
stability later ? Doesnt sound good :)

~~~
SnowLprd
It's certainly an improvement over what otherwise currently happens: unless
there's a recall, we are all driving "beta" cars with bugs that never get
patched. At least this way there is an easy method for correcting software
defects.

~~~
kayoone
yeah i know, i was just trying to make fun of certain aspects of the software
industry :) In the end its a good thing of course and car makers have alot of
validation to go through before a new car can be released anyway.

