
Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory - adventured
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-08/tesla-model-3-photos-of-elon-musk-s-factory-in-fremont
======
rconti
A few random comments, having toured a few auto plants and watched plenty of
videos:

* I'm surprised to hear Tesla is using robots to install seats. This isn't common, from what I've seen.

* I toured the Tesla factory back in October, perhaps a month after touring BMW in Munich. Tesla was _vastly_ less automated than BMW, for better or for worse. So I take the whole "Tesla is automating EVERYTHING!" with a grain of salt.

* It's not uncommon for cars to have the seatbelt integrated into the seat itself. Particularly with convertibles.

* A lot of this reads like a puff piece.

~~~
danso
> _So I take the whole "Tesla is automating EVERYTHING!" with a grain of
> salt._

FTA:

> _Even so, Tesla says the Model 3 body line is now 95 percent automated,
> including the transfer, loading, and welding of parts._

Apparently, there's a big difference between the "body line" assembly and the
rest of the line, as people in r/teslamotors have pointed out:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8pim5q/inside_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8pim5q/inside_teslas_model_3_factory_tesla_says_the/e0bjy80/)

> _When I was visiting the BMW plant in Munich a few years ago, they said the
> body line was automated 99%. It‘s really impressive, showed me that the real
> secret is not in the design of your car, but the design of your assembly
> line._

> _But keep in mind that this is only the body line. The rest of the assembly
> process involves quite a bit more humans._

~~~
rconti
Ah, cool, thanks. Yeah, I saw humans doing TONS of stuff at Tesla; driving
forklifts around (dragging chunks of wood under the wheels and bumping into
things), etc. OTOH its also possible BMW just hides that stuff from their
tours :)

------
fhood
I can't really judge how much insight can be gained from this article. It's a
little short on details, and reads as much like a press release as a piece of
journalism.

That said, damn are those some incredibly cool pictures. Seriously.

~~~
gowld
It's PR, and it has cool pictures. No insight necessary.

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heisenbergs
Wow. There is so much machinery that it's hard to spot the actual car parts.
Would like to know how this compares to other car manufacturers. I've seen
pictures from VW where there always seem to be humans around, though that may
be part of PR.

I also wonder when the typical Muskian move of in-housing more than is usual
(ie car seats) will fall over, or whether this will remain a competitive
advantage as Tesla will have more skin in the game than others.

~~~
rootusrootus
Most established car manufacturers have the body line near 100% automated.
Tesla isn't doing too bad really but they are still playing catch up.

People like to talk like the existing companies are back in the stone age or
something. Hardly.

------
bgorman
The thing that stands out to me here is that Tesla has wasted a ton of time
and money building up competency in commodity features. No consumer considers
Tesla Seats to be the differentiating factor. Why on earth didn't Tesla just
decide to use a more conventional seat design and outsource the work to a Seat
supplier like all other car manufacturers. Kind of reminds me of Software
Engineers that always want to roll their own implementation of everything...
They get less done and are overconfident in their own abilities.

~~~
kjksf
One possibility: that mindset of mediocrity doesn't produce excellence.

Apple, for example, is famous for caring about things that rationally they
shouldn't care, like the insides of their computers.

And since history is written by victors and we apply post factum
rationalization, no one says that Apple is wrong to care about details that
are arguably irrelevant to the success.

The same will happen with Tesla.

If Tesla is successful then Musk will be a genius with uncompromising standard
for quality.

If Tesla will fail then Musk will be an idiot whose hubris, micro-management
and inability to prioritize doomed the company.

And reality is that neither you or me have enough information to judge this
decision one way or another. You weren't there and the it was probably more
complicated that what you assume based on zero data.

According to reports Tesla started doing seats in-house when a contractor that
was supposedly an experienced seat maker failed to produce Model X seats which
contributed to 18 month delay in delivering the car.

~~~
FireBeyond
> One possibility: that mindset of mediocrity doesn't produce excellence.

> Apple, for example, is famous for caring about things that rationally they
> shouldn't care, like the insides of their computers.

Except, by all accounts and opinions, there's a fair degree of interior
"mediocrity". Whilst the screen is all flashy and showy, the dash, console are
pretty "average". And by average I mean, creaking, flimsy-ish, plastic parts.
Even on a $100,000+ Model S. My Altima has a comparable dash to the Model S.
My Audi S class? Hugely better, objectively and subjectively.

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zaroth
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.

------
dsfyu404ed
>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. They just usually stop making it by the time
they've got their degree.

Designing parts that deviate greatly from industry standards for marginal gain
and then finding out it's impossible to build what you want in the time you
have is rookie engineer mistake 101. It's always tempting at the time but it's
basically never worth it in hindsight

If you need a widget for your application and this particular widget isn't
central to your application then use an off the shelf widget or tweak it as
little as possible. Don't design a bespoke widget from the ground up.
Designing your own widget from scratch consumes resources you should bet
spending core aspects of the thing that you're building and has a high risk of
being a time and effort black hole as you work out teething issues.
Reinventing the wheel is fine, you should require that people have damn good
reason or every team will want to reinvent every wheel and nothing will get
done on time.

edit: I want my ass to be comfortable as much as the next guy but I'd rather
have an off the shelf seat and have a Tesla now than have a bespoke seat and
be on a waiting list.

~~~
vertline
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.

~~~
jonknee
Tesla makes relatively few cars and has credit worries, I can definitely
imagine suppliers not wanting to hand out big discounts.

------
Odenwaelder
How 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.

~~~
darzu
Does anyone know approx. how much one of these costs?
[https://www.fanucamerica.com/home/products-
services/robots/f...](https://www.fanucamerica.com/home/products-
services/robots/fanuc-zdt-zero-down-time)

~~~
gregpilling
a fairly standard industrial welding cell like a Panasonic 750 is between $85
to 125 thousand dollars per unit, which includes robot arm, welding power
supply, turntable, chassis that is it mounted to, and the transformer to power
it. Requires 240V 3ph 60A service.

[http://www.insrobotics.com/panasonic-robotic-parts-
repair/Pa...](http://www.insrobotics.com/panasonic-robotic-parts-
repair/Panasonic-robot-new-used-sales.cfm)

Source: I own two. They kick ass, and make more stuff that you would believe
is possible in a day.

~~~
rainbowmverse
What does one do with just two manufacturing robots?

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sschueller
I would love to see some videos of the Robots in action.

~~~
kjksf
There are some on YouTube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVCCroN7vS0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVCCroN7vS0)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM)

And one with more than just factory:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA18tusTgE4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA18tusTgE4)

~~~
1024core
The first 2 videos are from 2015 and 2013, respectively. I'm guessing things
have changed a bit since then?

~~~
izacus
Tesla S didn't really change since then, why do you expect a huge
manufacturing plant to change drastically? It's not like you just throw all
robots and conveyor belts in a bin like an iPhone. Car industry is on
significantly longer cycles.

~~~
niyazpk
Elon said[1] in the shareholder meeting that the Model S has changed
significantly from the older versions. I don't know the differences myself, so
take it FWIW.

[1]
[https://www.tesla.com/shareholdermeeting](https://www.tesla.com/shareholdermeeting)
at around 01:16:00

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woodandsteel
I 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.

~~~
s2g
> radically different approach that Tesla is taking to manufacture the Model
> 3.

I thought they gave up and went back to more traditional methods?

~~~
kitsunesoba
Only partially, with bits and pieces being re-automated as kinks get worked
out.

They’ve postponed full on automation until the Model Y.

