Tesla's Model 3 Is Still Out-Built By 70 Other Cars On US Soil
Tesla is finally getting to grips with Model 3 production, but new analysis has revealed just how far off the pace the firm really is.
As Elon Musk’s disruptive EV-maker appeals to shareholders by finally building more than 2000 Model 3s in a single week, industry analysts have pointed out that some 70 other models are being built faster in North American factories.
Tesla has long been accused of underestimating the importance of myriad tiny but crucial elements of car production; elements that the likes of Ford and Honda have long since mastered. Ford is currently building around 1100 Escape SUVs every day in a single factory, while Honda’s Canadian plant in Alliston, Ontario, needs just 3.5 human workers per car produced.
By contrast Tesla is cranking out just 289 Model 3s per day at best, and is paying 35 workers for every car that emerges. These phenomenal inefficiencies are said to be hurting shareholder confidence – and, inevitably, Tesla itself.
Tesla’s aim is to build 5000 Model 3s per week, equivalent to around 714 per day. A Bloomberg business analysis makes some excellent points about how far off the pace Tesla still is. It reads:
“Making a car, of course, requires a lot more than warm bodies. Managing supply chains and workflow is even more critical. The Bayerische Motoren Werke AG complex in Spartanburg, South Carolina, works with 235 different suppliers, and four out of five cars it screws together receive some level of specified customization. Tesla’s new machine, in comparison, comes in just three trims.
“Achieving such precision takes time and practice. Automakers usually go through a preproduction process that can take up to nine months. During this time, engineers calibrate the massive sentient robots’ arms to get the body panels fitting tightly and figure out the minutiae that make the difference between an assembly line running smoothly and stopping frequently.
“Every detail is studied from where the fenders should be stacked to how many bolts should be piled in a rolling tray that accompanies a vehicle down the assembly line. In its haste to produce the Model 3, Tesla skipped this page of the traditional automaker’s playbook.”
Source: Bloomberg
Comments
All these articles about Tesla are starting to annoy me, especially with the anti-ev rhetoric that seems to drive their message. They all boil down to the same issue of public dissatisfaction. However, take this article for example, which only really tells us: “production line that’s been innovated, developed and specialised for 80 years is more efficient than a type of production line that was only invented in the last 10 years”. In other words, grass is green. And with all the other issues Tesla has faced, it all boils down to a similar conclusion. The problem is that societal expectations for eV’s surpassing ICE vehicles is on such a short scale that as soon as Telsa doesn’t perfect something first time, there is outrage and skeptasism, when infact it’s a perfectly normal occurrence in the emergence of a brand-new tachnology!
Thank you for that comment! Exactly what I thought.
I agree completely but the matter of the fact is that people hold it up to the same level as ICE
The investors are finally seeing that Tesla aren’t as good as they say they are
I would see why they don’t sell, they have one of those ugly stuck-on screens in them
Sure. It has to be that.
I think Tesla used Clarkson’s saying: “How hard canit be?”
model 3 is the worst tesla ever
I can attest to Ford cranking out Escapes at LAP. They fill up every “unused” parking lot in a 4 mile radius with Escapes and whatever the Lincoln version is
These model 3’s are ugly…
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