Musk: Tesla's factory will become an 'alien dreadnought'
YouTube screencap
And evidently, those production problems became severe this year. After the car maker released second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, CEO Elon Musk took analysts questions and revealed how many issues Tesla had with first-half 2016 manufacturing:
"We were in production hell," he said. "We climbed out of hell in June."
He added that he's "not losing sleep at night because of production issues" anymore, but that he has "a whole lot of mental scar tissue from earlier this year."
He included some insight into the changes that will necessary at Tesla's California factory to achieve mass-production of the forthcoming Model 3, which will sell for $35,000 and hit the road in 2017.
Musk said that the in-house term they have for the manufacturing advancement he hopes to introduce is "alien dreadnought."
"The point at which that's what the factory looks like, that's when you know you've won."
Musk then outlined, using software terminology, the evolution of the factory, from version o.5 to version 3.0
"By version 3, it won't look like anything else," he said. "You can't have people in the production line itself, otherwise you drop to people speed. So there will be no people in production process itself. People will maintain the machines, upgrade them, and deal with anomalies."
This idea has been talked about in the auto industry and the wider world of manufacturing for some time. But Musk seems to be aiming for full automation of the Model 3 build process.
- US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- Upcoming smartphones launching in India in May 2024
- Markets rebound in early trade amid global rally, buying in ICICI Bank and Reliance
- Women in Leadership
- Rupee declines 5 paise to 83.43 against US dollar in early trade
- Election Commission issues notification for sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market