
Parts of Model 3 Were Being Made by Hand - petethomas
https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-teslas-production-delays-parts-of-model-3-were-being-made-by-hand-1507321057
======
rco8786
> Unknown to analysts, investors and the hundreds of thousands of customers
> who signed up to buy it, as recently as early September major portions of
> the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand, away from the automated
> production line...

Why is this so accusatory? Was there some guarantee made that the Model 3's
production line would be 100% autonomous, ever?

Sounds more like Tesla's doing what it needs to do to ship what it can.

Disclaimer - I don't have access to the full story so might be missing some
context.

~~~
metaphor
> I don't have access to the full story so might be missing some context.

[https://outline.com/AbbLRj](https://outline.com/AbbLRj)

~~~
keganunderwood
Thank you. This should be the link in the title. Better still, we should
reassess
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13434938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13434938)
and ban direct links to pay walled sites.

~~~
thsowers
There are still numerous ways to circumvent the paywall [0], or else linking
to WSJ would be against the guidelines [1]

[0]:
[https://github.com/njuljsong/wsjUnblock](https://github.com/njuljsong/wsjUnblock)

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

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QML
I can't believe Tesla is bringing hand-crafted cars to the consumer market! /s

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lathiat
I would have been surprised if this wasn't the case, I think people need a
reality check!

~~~
Armisael16
It _is_ unusual. The article outright quotes an expert on that.

~~~
tzm
It's not unusual. It's in fact a common practice to hand craft components when
building new products to full production scale at various stages.

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jaimex2
The story came from the WSJ which has a reputation of making things up when it
comes to Tesla. A second confirmation source would be nice but it doesnt look
like anyone else is touching this.

~~~
thsowers
I agree, but the Tesla spokesperson didn't deny, and instead shot back with:

> For over a decade, the WSJ has relentlessly attacked Tesla with misleading
> articles that, with few exceptions, push or exceed the boundaries of
> journalistic integrity. While it is possible that this article could be an
> exception, that is extremely unlikely.

I want Tesla to succeed, but as far as I see it, the burden of proof is
currently on Tesla as they fell incredibly short of their claimed production
goals for Q3.

~~~
lafar6502
it’s not their first car and with a company that claims to be worth more than
most of other car producers the inability to build and run a production
line/process looks just ridiculous. What is going on there? Maybe they should
outsource to China and get the whole manufacturing running in few weeks?

~~~
jaimex2
Tesla has officially replied to this and denied the WSJ article accusing them
of being wrong and purposefully misleading along with images of the production
line. [https://electrek.co/2017/10/08/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-
image...](https://electrek.co/2017/10/08/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-images-
production-line/)

Thanks for the downvotes, god I hate HN karma.

~~~
lafar6502
Yes, their legal/bs/accusations department is the only one delivering as
planned

