This intrigues me as it appears that Tesla is shipping their production mistakes to China.
Things work differently in Michigan. Ford deliveries of the new F-150 pickup trucks were held up as they shipped them to a lot outside the city where non-union help fixed the manufacturing defects. This is how the Big 3 operates fixes manufacturing defects.
I wonder if there's some kind of monkey business going on with being able to maintain production and shipping numbers by "shipping" to some intermediate location. I grew up south of Detroit and remember a time period when Detroit Metro Airport was being used as a storage facility for acres and acres of excess new car inventory.
It's more about keeping the line running. The line has a fixed throughput, and if it stops, it's hard to catch up. It's a stupendously expensive thing, staffed with a similarly-expensive complement of workers.
Rework in the yard, on the other hand, is "soft", it can can be parallelized across as many workers as you can deploy, and they're usually contractors so you only bring them in when you need them.
So if cars can be finished enough to roll 'em through end-of-line and then into yard hold, that's what you do. Clean it up as soon as possible of course, but whatever you do, don't stop the line.
The official term is yard hold. This is nightmare for any engineer who’s part is responsible for yard hold. The vehicles are made, but not allowed to be shipped to a dealership. And everyone’s breathing down your neck unless the issue is fixed and they are allowed to leave. Issues can be anything from simple part squeaking to major design flaw. Each vehicle is test driven over a course before the manufacturing teams give it a ‘ship it’ tag. Door fit is a major issue for anyone and everyone. You simply cannot engineer doors to fit right, the assembly line guys always have to pull it, twist it and ‘align’ it. Tolerances exist, but the tighter you go the more parts you’ll reject, the more the cost of that part will be i.e. cost of your car will go up. Everything can be fixed and it’s never too late, the only problem is the cost of the fix. The later in production a fix is issued, the higher is the cost.
There are a lot of differences in the way Toyota manufactures cars compared to, say, typical US manufacturers and the differences are extensively studied in the literature. These techniques have been adapted to other fields, even software development. If you ever heard the term “kanban board”, well, that system is based on Toyota’s manufacturing system.
One of the principles of Toyota’s process is that they will stop the assembly line to fix defects. This sounds simple, but other manufacturers will keep the assembly line moving, putting pressure on workers to complete their steps faster.
One of the classic case studies is the Fremont Assembly plant in Fremont, California, which was run by GM until 1982 when it closed due to production problems. It was considered an embarrassment to the US automotive industry. Cars from the Fremont plant would come off the assembly line with major defects and they couldn’t be shipped to dealers. When I say “major defects”, think “this car can’t be shipped to a dealer, because it is missing a door.”
Toyota needed to manufacture vehicles in North America and created a joint venture with GM called NUMMI, which reopened the plant in 1984—manufacturing both GM and Toyota vehicles. The existing workforce was sent to Japan to learn Toyota’s manufacturing system. The defect rate dropped dramatically after Toyota’s involvement. GM attempted to take what they learned from Toyota and bring it to other factories in the US, but failed.
> For various reasons, the plant shut down in 2010. It is now a Tesla plant.
It probably wasn't intended that way, but that's such a beautiful irony. Similar to the dark humor of writing of Catch 22 and other books.
Describe all the technological and managerial achievements and progresses of the system that is supposedly so much better than the one mentioned before (Tesla), and how it documentedly better, and produces so many good results and tolerating so many struggles, only to find out that it still was replaced by none other than Tesla. I guess they bet on the things that mattered even more.
I don't think that market cap, an entirely fictional number (constructed by multiplying two non-fictional numbers), is a reasonable or sufficient measure of "largest $X company".
TSLA is doing well, but that has little or nothing to do with Tesla the auto manufacturer, and it certainly doesn't dictate their "size".
Toyota/Lexus fan here. They make the worlds finest previous-generation automobiles. It kills me how close they get to the mark (ie new 2021 hybrid Sienna WITHOUT plug-in) and just don’t hit it.
> Door fit is a major issue for anyone and everyone. You simply cannot engineer doors to fit right, the assembly line guys always have to pull it, twist it and ‘align’ it.
I know nothing about manufacturing for cars or anything else, but ... why can't doors be engineered to just fit? In terms of absolute tolerances, I'm guessing all the stuff in the engine or transmission for a typical car is far more stringent, right? Is there something specific to the manufacturing process for doors or frames that is less controlled or precise?
I would guess it is because doors are large pieces of stamped sheet metal, as are the other body parts they mount to. They span a fairly large opening. There's probably a certain amount of flex and variation compared to cast and CNC machined engine parts. Doors in a house always need to be shimmed during installation to get the frames square and latches working properly. A car door will have tighter tolerances, but similar issues.
The point is these adjustments are (or should be) made in the factory, not with post-delivery reworking.
Because of material inconsistencies that are hard to get rid of (sheet metal is rolled to thickness out of a non-uniform billet, and cools non-uniformly as well due to edge effects, so you get small hardness and thickness variations) the material will deform in unpredictable ways during stamping. This causes very small deformities but over the size of a whole door it adds up leading to door being off by up to a few mm even when using exactly the same tooling during manufacturing. Welding then further deforms the door, even when it happens robotically and in a jig. The chassis typically suffers from the same effects. When the chassis warps one way and the doors warp in the other you can end up with poor fit.
So manufacturers will do what they can to control for this but it will always be an issue as long as the input material is as inconsistent as it is.
Unlike software, the real world is messy, and while of course it is technically feasible to mill a whole door and a chassis out of a billet it wouldn't be economical. So we adjust during manufacturing to cover the variations.
I had a metal workshop and materials science has always interested me. Trying to accurately and repeatedly cut sheetmetal is an interesting - and ultimately very frustrating - experience. You can easily get to a certain degree of accuracy and above that it rapidly becomes hard or even impossible to make progress.
Since the doors and bodies come from separate production lines, you could use computer vision to very accurately measure them and then match up those with the best fit so you need to do the least adjustment.
Alternatively you could pre-bend the doors in a machine for each body, after welding.
But probably cheapest indeed to have a station late in the assembly line with people manually twisting the doors to fit, as is the standard practice.
For what it's worth, I work on airliners and heard several times that doors are often a problem also. Not just passenger doors but also cargo and landing gear doors. They're hard to get right, and often need tweaking especially at the start of a program.
More curiously, how is it acceptable to even let that leave the factory?
This is just pure WTF!?:
They said the car was too heavy for its suspension components. Both the lower and upper wishbone in my Model X cracked due to the heavy weight.
EVs are new so one could expect some roughness around those parts, but the basics like body/frame/suspension have been around for more than half a century.
I wonder if you went to buy a car 60-70 years ago, from one of the Big Three, what were the chances of getting one with such defects?
Tesla is a great software company with unique battery technology, but they are in no way a good car company. Even the expensive model S has terrible build quality compared to the entry level models of the typical German brands.
I'm curious whether they can fix this on time, because VW is making progress on the EV side of things and several other big car brands aren't far behind.
Could you point me in the direction where I can read about the unique battery technology? Charging "Li-.*" is a solved problem[1], within the same chemistry they're essentially all the same, except binning.
The fact that the car doesn't fully discharge or fully charge unless asked to is nothing revolutionary.
I'm a nonbeliever obviously, my opinion is that their only truly unique features is the inflated stock price.
Anode materials vary, and last I looked Tesla had a unique recipe in that department making their batteries less costly than the competitors, which I imagine enables more cells at similar cost.
Are EVs really that new? The first Nissan Leaf came out in 2010, the Tesla Roadster began development in 2004 and launched in 2008. Other modern consumer EVs came out in 2009 or earlier. You could say "new compared to internal combustion engines" but research (and functioning prototypes, even consumer-adjacent builds) on electric cars dates back to the early 1900s of earlier.
I think people need to stop cutting car manufacturers slack on this stuff, they've had time to get it right.
also, things like doors not closing properly have nothing to do with it being an electric car.
Bodywork in cars has been stamped metal for atleast 70 years, if not more. while it is a delicate and complicated process, it has been done countless of times before.
Some of those concerns look legit. Some of them seem like incredible nitpicking. I need to go try a Lexus or something so I can appreciate what a truly perfect car is like lol.
> With so many bitter stories to share about his Tesla experience, Chan said he likes the cars despite how the company treated him over these years.
This mindset just baffles the hell out of me. Why? Just...why? You're paying a staggering amount of money for something that's broken from the start and the seller's response is "well, that sucks, doesn't it?" and you turn around and still like what you got sold?
All of the hassle involved in buying a car, new or used, is a big reason why my family didn't replace our last one when it went out of service. It's disappointing that an "all-new entrant" to the automaker scene like Tesla falls into the same sort of take-it-or-leave-it stuff that used car lots have long been known for.
For some reason this type of behavior is very specific to Tesla. There is something to be said about feeling as part of a community (or as some would say, a cult).
What exactly does make Tesla a tech company compared to other car manufacturers?
Nearly all car manufacturers have adaptive cruise control somewhere in their lineup - they just don't claim to reach FSD with the currently used hardware. But almost all are actively researching FSD with different hardware.
Making EVs doesn't make you a tech company. ICE are even more complicated than electric engines and Tesla doesn't make their batteries themselves.
I'm getting strong WeWork vibes from Tesla's claim to be a tech company.
I have test driven a few cars before ending up with a model 3. Autopilot really takes the edge off and handles the car with confidence . No other car came close then, and was the only car then providing software updates which would make it even better. Tesla is no wework ..
I have trouble understanding how autopilot could be relaxing. You have to be constantly vigilant lest it drive you into a concrete barrier or parked truck—yes those events are highly unlikely, but that would just make it more difficult to stay focused. And if I have to be entirely focused on the road anyway, why not just guide the car myself?
Have you tried it? I recently got my first car that has adaptive cruise control and “lane-keep assist,” which is essentially what Tesla calls “autopilot,” and it’s really great even with its limitations and flaws. Yes, you need to remain alert, and it doesn’t do everything for you, but it still does some things for you. I’m not sure what’s difficult to understand.
I have driven a car with lane keep assist and hated it. If I'm getting close to the edge of a lane, it's intentional and often for safety; having the car try to interfere with that is counter-productive. I wouldn't call it comparable to Tesla's autopilot though, as it only intervened in steering when you neared the edge of the lane. I guess you could just let it pinball down the road like that, but I wouldn't want to attempt it. Maybe other cars do it better.
Adaptive cruise on the other hand is great, but all modern cars have that.
The real issue though is that it's harder to remain alert when the car is effectively doing everything for you... until it doesn't.
All lane keep assists are not the same. Tesla’s version drives through curves with ease, not like others which flop around one lane marker to other and may give up pretty easily
Infiniti’s lane assist doesn’t ping pong nearly as much as others. Newer cars have lane centering now which keeps you in the middle of the lane. Some manufacturers have done the Tesla thing and mapped out public roads like GM SuperCruise
Also don’t let the car ping pong, if it loses the lane marking then the car will keep on lane changing with impunity
If you’ve flown a plane on autopilot, the experience is similar: you can direct your attention elsewhere and you end up less fatigued. You still need to be awake and alert but don’t have to worry about tedious things like holding a heading/drifting out of your lane or maintaining speed.
I haven't flown myself, but I would guess when cruising in a plane, there's far less likelihood of hitting a stationary object should the autopilot mess up.
You are literally required to be vigilant while operating an autopilot vehicle, if you're relaxing and letting it completely handle the vehicle that means you're not properly operating your car. It's an assist. Even Tesla's documentation and instructions tell you this.
I know about the comparisons to a plane's autopilot, but when driving you don't have the luxury of minutes to react. The name puts an image of confidence in drivers' minds while failing to deliver.
(I don't own a Tesla; I just find they terribly misnamed the feature.)
In asking that question, my guess is that you’ve never experienced being a Tesla owner. And that’s fair. I’m a Tesla owner myself, for full disclosure.
I’ve found that a Tesla is truly a computer on wheels; not unlike an iPhone is a computer in your hand. In many ways, Tesla is a software company that makes their own hardware. Unlike every other auto manufacturer, their software has full and complete control over every aspect of their hardware. Their hardware-software vertical integration is for real. They also have single software releases that deploy OTA to their whole fleet of in-service “devices.” From a software and release engineering perspective, incumbent auto manufacturers are decades behind.
> Nearly all car manufacturers have adaptive cruise control somewhere in their lineup
I’d argue the difference is that _every_ vehicle Tesla sells today is cable of being upgraded to the latest state of autonomy—just by an OTA software update and/or flipping some feature flags. While the claim of full Level 5 autonomy without lidar is controversial, it’s possible that most Teslas on the road today will be capable of being upgraded to L5 capability via a software update.
All that said, the QA issues in those photos are pretty jarring. No excuses there.
> just by an OTA software update and/or flipping some feature flags
Sounds like you might not have "experienced being a Tesla owner". There are a ton of Tesla's which, according to the company, will definitely require hardware updates for full self-driving.
They're not a tech company, but they think (and loudly say) they are, and that causes these kinds of problems. Using tech jargon does not a tech company make.
> While the claim of full Level 5 autonomy without lidar is controversial, it’s possible that most Teslas on the road today will be capable of being upgraded to L5 capability via a software update.
How can you claim the current hardware on Teslas is capable of L5 when they haven’t even demonstrated L4 capability? Just saying it’s capable for full autonomy doesn’t actually make it so, they need to actually prove it.
Also, you (and Elon Musk) talk about Level 5 so casually when all the self driving companies out there strictly claim to aim for only Level 4.
Because humans are perfectly capable of doing this task with vision only. Which means it's effectively a visual modelilng task, and is only a question of computation technology, modelling and available FLOPS inside the car. It seems perfectly possible that the hardware in a current Tesla car is capable of this.
Sorry, this is just wishful thinking. Computers don’t have human brains which have evolved over millions of years. So just saying “if humans do it with only vision, so can computers” is frankly weak logic. The technology isn’t there yet to match human brain performance, unless you believe Tesla will achieve several breakthroughs in computer vision and AI to do this.
Who said that the technology was there? Did you even read the previous comments or just jumped onto the hate wagon because of preconceptions?
The question was why it is possible. Not why "it should work today", nor "why it will most definitely 100% happen guaranteed in the next couple of years".
So the technology isn’t there and nobody has gotten anywhere close to achieving those significant breakthroughs in vision or AI, but it’s “perfectly possible” with current hardware “because humans do it”? This answer makes no sense.
The real answer is nobody knows whether current hardware is enough or not, including Tesla. Until they demonstrate it, it’s just a claim. But they can’t sell the cars on FSD promise if they say it.
Humans don't need lidar -> that means all the information is present in the visual channel -> it is at least theoretically possible to do with cameras -> tesla cars have cameras -> tesla cars might have possibility to do it.
> it is at least theoretically possible to do with cameras
Theoretically, yes. But that’s different than confidently claiming it’s “perfectly possible” and that it’s only a question of computation and modeling.
Tesla is categorically saying all their vehicles on the road have necessary hardware for full self driving. Did you somehow miss this? They’re taking money on this promise. So who cares if the original poster snuck in the word ‘possible’ or not?
Because you talk to and respond to people on this forum. You can't misrepresent what they write and call it "they snuck in a word". What kind of logic is that? To respond to some other claim from somewhere else on the internet, real or imaginary, regardless of what the person in question writes?
While I personally don't agree with your claim that "tesla categorically saying" those things, the poster still did say it even less.
This is what Tesla claim:
The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving features evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates.
You are welcome to present any links or quotes as to where you got the idea that Tesla claims that the vechicle is guaranteed to have FSD in some specific claimed time period (including a time period within each individual vechicle's lifespan).
I also personally know several Tesla owners and none of them interpret the company's claims the way you do. So who are all these people who you think are defrauded or lied to? Where are all the angry buyers who thought they were getting Level 5?
> To respond to some other claim from somewhere else on the internet, real or imaginary, regardless of what the person in question writes?
I'm responding to Tesla's official claims about FSD hardware.
> You are welcome to present any links or quotes as to where you got the idea that Tesla claims that the vechicle is guaranteed to have FSD in some specific claimed time period (including a time period within each individual vechicle's lifespan).
Way to move the goal post. This whole thread is about hardware, not OTA software updates or a timeframe to deliver FSD. They've repeatedly claimed since 2016 that all Teslas have necessary hardware for Level 5 functionality. I've explained in this comment chain why that claim is disingenuous.
They have similar levels of customer loyalty that baffle some outsiders, but at least one has a reputation for outstanding polish and customer experience and the other one has awful customer service and quality stories you can find every day.
This is weird to me because it seems much easier for a mfg company(read, all other car makers) to throw cash and catch up in tech, than it is for a tech company(tesla) to nail manufacturing. AutoPilot aside, for now.
> most people don’t know what a panel gap is and would never think to measure the ground clearance
No, most people would just describe this as 'general poor quality'.
Six Sigma quality manufacturing is all based on reducing deviation and defects - these are red flags.
And although they might not know to check these things, I think if you explained to the average consumer that some cars are 25% lower to the ground, while some are 25% higher, because of general manufacturing inaccuracy, they wouldn't be impressed.
I remember being so disappointed, when I was finally able to buy my first-ever new car, to find out that you CAN'T really get it the way you want it, not anymore.
Too many decades of Americans buying whatever car happens to be sitting on the lot today (usually in silver paint with beige interior) means that most vehicles aren't available with any real selection of options (they're typically packaged together), no interesting paint colors, and dealers that are uninterested in finding what you actually want. It's staggering to me that people apparently feel they don't have any power to get what they want when laying out a huge chunk of money.
It's possible to configure a car to your specifications, but you have to find a dealer willing to commit their order quota to it and wait a few months for the car to arrive. Do not expect much haggling if you take this path.
Yes, but depending on the manufacturer, you might not have nearly as many options as you might like. And then it sometimes comes wrong anyway.
Source: ordered a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Couldn't order 15" wheels with premium trim. Ordered a spare tire, and got the built-in vacuum instead (this worked out OK, the donut spare, ordered separately, fits under in the middle seat stowage, if you finagle it). Still would have prefered 15" wheels over 17" or whatever we had to order, but not enough to buy new wheels. Would not recommend buying that early in the model cycle, but that's somewhat separate from ordering; except that they had no Pacificas on the lot to sell anyway, so it wasn't too hard to convince them to order one.
Yeah, that's a good example. My Golf R only had 2 option packages to choose from. Can't get a sunroof. Can't get a spare tire, even though it fits. (order the parts at retail from Europe at a HUGE retail markup, install them yourself). Something like 5 color choices. No wheel options. Can't get the great cloth seats available in Europe.
It seems like this thread is missing the history of mass car manufacturing entirely, which began with a single SKU for the Model T. Customization to your heart’s content was never the strength. Especially for non-luxury brands. Try working through a Porsche configuration: you can select the color of the stitching!
It's interesting that US car culture still affected from Model T. At least in Japan, any car (except commercial vehicle) is somewhat or very customizable for interior/exterior even in $10k.
Same! What’s especially misleading is that most of the car manufacturer websites have a “Build your own” tool where you can select the features and options that you want, only to discover that no cars exist in that configuration.
Just go to the dealer and spec the car like you want it, put a deposit down and wait a few months for it to arrive. If you want something bespoke you can't expect it to be in inventory.
I generally buy Nissan because the local dealer is good. Generally the base models have what people want, it's only fancy interior or exterior add-ons that make you wait. Base models have ac, sat nav, cameras etc already. Generally you don't have to wait too long because the car is already built or there is one to that spec being built soon. I think the most I had to wait was 2 months
I don‘t get the problem. In germany you go to a desler and tell them you want this specific configuration, you sign a contract and 3-4 months later your specific build is delivered to the dealery.
Most car dealers in the US, at least for “normal” (ie, non-premium) car brands are extremely reluctant to custom order cars and often outright refuse to do so. They also tend to put subtle pressure on customers to buy something of the lot right now instead. The car buying experience is very different over here compared to Germany.
Yes his attitude baffled me as well. I won’t buy Dodge products because as a back yard mechanic they are the vehicle that has let me down the most. They have ghost issues that are near impossible to track down and fix. Transmission issues. Electrical issues. I could rant all day. I finally saved up and went with a Toyota and now feel comfortable driving long distances again and know I should be good for several hundred thousand miles. I honestly believe Tesla is playing with fire with this poor quality control. They may get away with it for now but I promise as they grow if they don’t address these issues you will have the opposite of a fan club and people who hate your product and promote others to their friends. I have convinced several people not to buy dodge/Chrysler. They are cheap to but cheaply made as well and guaranteed to let you down. Will Tesla become the next Dodge?
>“In Hong Kong, any new car demands a 100 percent tax. Electric cars had no tax, so I bought the Model S and the Model X. Now we have to pay a 25-percent tax on EVs, which is still lower than with regular combustion-engined vehicles, but what will happen to the company when these incentives are over? Will people still want to buy cars that seem to come from a junkyard?”
He's not complaining about the service, because the car is half the price of any other car. It's like complaining that a Chevrolet Aveo is small and the engine is underpowered.
"As for the Model 3 he was not able to refuse, Chan said he paid for the EV but cannot use it. The Hong Kong Service Center said he would have to wait until mid-February to pick up his car. Only by then they would be able to fix some of the issues he spotted. His Model X is also at the Service Center, which left him pretty much on foot."
There were also extreme cases. Some of them were so sloppy that they prevented safe participation in road traffic. One of the readers of “Motor” received the FSO 1500, in which a factory defect in the body made its driving almost impossible. In the TV program “Kram”, aired on October 12, 1986, an interview was conducted with a man who found 41 defects in a new car he had bought. After consulting with an expert, it was found that there were 45 of them. There was an opinion that in order to drive the new Polonez without any problems, it was necessary to invest 100,000 zlotys in its renovation (~10% of total value). These cars, however, passed the zero inspection without any problems. The sentence of one of the engineers working at FSM can be considered the best justification for this: “People will buy any car”
> It was not the first time Chan tried to buy a Model 3. In 2016, he placed a reservation for the EV and was charged seven times by Tesla. He canceled the reservation and only received all his money back three and a half years later – without any compensation or interest.
Jeez, I was thinking of getting a model Y but some of these stories are scary.
Also the video and images in the link show some pretty bad quality engineering.
I came here to quote this same line. And he still bought a car from them after that?!
Tesla has also apparently just ended their money-back guarantee. Tough to imagine buying a new one now. Maybe a year or two old, where you can fully inspect it before committing. I don't know that I want to deal with their service either though. Fortunately there are a lot more EVs coming on the market now.
And it has a battery that doesn't give you range anxiety? And you can charge it with 100kW+ on a supercharger? And it has the autopilot that can drive without interaction for hundreds of miles? And it will get software updates through wifi? All of those things just work?
No antagonism. The comment claimed that they have bought an equivalent vechicle, I am wondering what that vechicle is, because to my knowledge there aren't really any good competitors to Tesla, if you consider the combination of the quality (-ish, it's decent), software, battery tech, driving performance and price.
I didn’t claim I bought an equivalent vehicle. I bought a vehicle which just “works”. And I avoided all the Tesla build quality issues.
I have a gas car / hybrid for the 100mile+ road trips we take once every 60 days.
And I have an EV for the daily driver. Nissan Leaf has more than enough range (for daily driving) cost 6-7k, insurance is $20/month, and I’ve yet to have any maintenance issues.
Wait until the start of the next quarter. Vast majority of the cars are fine, but just be aware what to look for. They will fix issues after the fact but it’s helpful to catch anything early on.
Like what though? Same could be said about any car manufacturer. Electronics wise the car will yell if there’s anything wrong so the only other thing I could think of would be something wrong with the chassis which hasn’t been an issue you see with Tesla’s. Most of the problems are cosmetic.
There is a class action lawsuit against Tesla because the model S and X suspension can prematurely break. They issued a recall in China, but not in the US.
Or just steer clear of Tesla completely. They have some nice to haves, but the price you pay (not $$) for it is too high.
I have two colleagues who got Model X's, they both drove as much Model S the first 6 months (at least) after getting the vehicle as the quality was so subpar. One door had to be repainted because the gull wings were scraping against eachother, panel gaps, the car started to kernel panic after an update and was immobilized, the list goes on (This is only what i know off, i stopped asking after awhile).
It's only a sample size of two, but I've never heard of anything like it before. I wouldn't want that from a 1.5MSEK purchase. The problem is that they won't just magically become better without lowering production speeds, which they can't to because then the stock might just finally pop. So buying a Tesla you're stuck getting something rushed together rather sloppily. Go Lexus/Toyota unless you really need the Tesla "cool factor" but rather a good vehicle.
> "We are not familiar with Hong Kong’s consumer protection laws, but they are probably the same ones China adopts."
Despite recent events, I don't think this is necessarily a safe assumption. Many of Hong Kong's organisations, such as the ICAC (Independent Commission against Corruption) originate from the previous British administration and will be very different from any corresponding organisations in the PRC.
This is why I’ve been telling people to not order end of quarter and to instead order right at the start. You’ll wait a bit but you won’t have a rushed car or delivery.
Part of why this keeps happening is Elon knows it’s possible to deliver x many cars so he pushes even if it hurts quality. They end up pulling it off and that ends up as justification to push harder. Probably cheaper in the long run to fix the cars post sale. I’ve had a few issues but they fixed without question.
I wonder how this will affect Tesla's long-term profitability and valuation. At the moment, the average Tesla on the road is very young - especially with the rapid growth in production rates.
A car door that doesn't quite shut and lets water in is a major annoyance, but if they start breaking down left right and centre, that could crush them. Among established car brands, failure rates are a major decision factor.
Or maybe it will turn out these are mostly superficial issues, who knows. I'm not convinced.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 179 ms ] threadThings work differently in Michigan. Ford deliveries of the new F-150 pickup trucks were held up as they shipped them to a lot outside the city where non-union help fixed the manufacturing defects. This is how the Big 3 operates fixes manufacturing defects.
Rework in the yard, on the other hand, is "soft", it can can be parallelized across as many workers as you can deploy, and they're usually contractors so you only bring them in when you need them.
So if cars can be finished enough to roll 'em through end-of-line and then into yard hold, that's what you do. Clean it up as soon as possible of course, but whatever you do, don't stop the line.
One of the principles of Toyota’s process is that they will stop the assembly line to fix defects. This sounds simple, but other manufacturers will keep the assembly line moving, putting pressure on workers to complete their steps faster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way
One of the classic case studies is the Fremont Assembly plant in Fremont, California, which was run by GM until 1982 when it closed due to production problems. It was considered an embarrassment to the US automotive industry. Cars from the Fremont plant would come off the assembly line with major defects and they couldn’t be shipped to dealers. When I say “major defects”, think “this car can’t be shipped to a dealer, because it is missing a door.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Assembly
Toyota needed to manufacture vehicles in North America and created a joint venture with GM called NUMMI, which reopened the plant in 1984—manufacturing both GM and Toyota vehicles. The existing workforce was sent to Japan to learn Toyota’s manufacturing system. The defect rate dropped dramatically after Toyota’s involvement. GM attempted to take what they learned from Toyota and bring it to other factories in the US, but failed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI
For various reasons, the plant shut down in 2010. It is now a Tesla plant.
It probably wasn't intended that way, but that's such a beautiful irony. Similar to the dark humor of writing of Catch 22 and other books.
Describe all the technological and managerial achievements and progresses of the system that is supposedly so much better than the one mentioned before (Tesla), and how it documentedly better, and produces so many good results and tolerating so many struggles, only to find out that it still was replaced by none other than Tesla. I guess they bet on the things that mattered even more.
TSLA is doing well, but that has little or nothing to do with Tesla the auto manufacturer, and it certainly doesn't dictate their "size".
I know nothing about manufacturing for cars or anything else, but ... why can't doors be engineered to just fit? In terms of absolute tolerances, I'm guessing all the stuff in the engine or transmission for a typical car is far more stringent, right? Is there something specific to the manufacturing process for doors or frames that is less controlled or precise?
The point is these adjustments are (or should be) made in the factory, not with post-delivery reworking.
So manufacturers will do what they can to control for this but it will always be an issue as long as the input material is as inconsistent as it is.
Unlike software, the real world is messy, and while of course it is technically feasible to mill a whole door and a chassis out of a billet it wouldn't be economical. So we adjust during manufacturing to cover the variations.
Alternatively you could pre-bend the doors in a machine for each body, after welding.
But probably cheapest indeed to have a station late in the assembly line with people manually twisting the doors to fit, as is the standard practice.
> Giga-Sweatshop Meets Corporate Overlords: an Exclusive Look Into How Tesla China Runs its Shanghai Gigafactory 3
https://en.pingwest.com/a/8154
This is just pure WTF!?:
They said the car was too heavy for its suspension components. Both the lower and upper wishbone in my Model X cracked due to the heavy weight.
EVs are new so one could expect some roughness around those parts, but the basics like body/frame/suspension have been around for more than half a century.
I wonder if you went to buy a car 60-70 years ago, from one of the Big Three, what were the chances of getting one with such defects?
I'm curious whether they can fix this on time, because VW is making progress on the EV side of things and several other big car brands aren't far behind.
The fact that the car doesn't fully discharge or fully charge unless asked to is nothing revolutionary.
I'm a nonbeliever obviously, my opinion is that their only truly unique features is the inflated stock price.
1: https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium...
IIRC they used less cobalt.
I think people need to stop cutting car manufacturers slack on this stuff, they've had time to get it right.
Bodywork in cars has been stamped metal for atleast 70 years, if not more. while it is a delicate and complicated process, it has been done countless of times before.
Ask the person who accepted it, perhaps?
It's "take it, or leave your money, and maybe we will get around to fixing it eventually".
There is a sucker born every minute. Does any one really think their extra 6k for FSD will get switched on before the end of the cars life?
Mass-produced economy brands can't afford to have any returns. The service network is poor to non-existent.
This mindset just baffles the hell out of me. Why? Just...why? You're paying a staggering amount of money for something that's broken from the start and the seller's response is "well, that sucks, doesn't it?" and you turn around and still like what you got sold?
All of the hassle involved in buying a car, new or used, is a big reason why my family didn't replace our last one when it went out of service. It's disappointing that an "all-new entrant" to the automaker scene like Tesla falls into the same sort of take-it-or-leave-it stuff that used car lots have long been known for.
And there is no other practical (ie road trips) EV in the US.
These stories tend to be outliers, most people don’t know what a panel gap is and would never think to measure the ground clearance.
That doesn't excuse poor engineering. You also might measure ground clearance if you can't park your car:
" His car has a 12 cm (4.7 in) ground clearance, which will not allow him to enter his parking spot – hence his concern about it. "
Nearly all car manufacturers have adaptive cruise control somewhere in their lineup - they just don't claim to reach FSD with the currently used hardware. But almost all are actively researching FSD with different hardware.
Making EVs doesn't make you a tech company. ICE are even more complicated than electric engines and Tesla doesn't make their batteries themselves.
I'm getting strong WeWork vibes from Tesla's claim to be a tech company.
Adaptive cruise on the other hand is great, but all modern cars have that.
The real issue though is that it's harder to remain alert when the car is effectively doing everything for you... until it doesn't.
Also don’t let the car ping pong, if it loses the lane marking then the car will keep on lane changing with impunity
See Boeing 737 Max and it’s infamous autopilot
I know about the comparisons to a plane's autopilot, but when driving you don't have the luxury of minutes to react. The name puts an image of confidence in drivers' minds while failing to deliver.
(I don't own a Tesla; I just find they terribly misnamed the feature.)
In asking that question, my guess is that you’ve never experienced being a Tesla owner. And that’s fair. I’m a Tesla owner myself, for full disclosure.
I’ve found that a Tesla is truly a computer on wheels; not unlike an iPhone is a computer in your hand. In many ways, Tesla is a software company that makes their own hardware. Unlike every other auto manufacturer, their software has full and complete control over every aspect of their hardware. Their hardware-software vertical integration is for real. They also have single software releases that deploy OTA to their whole fleet of in-service “devices.” From a software and release engineering perspective, incumbent auto manufacturers are decades behind.
> Nearly all car manufacturers have adaptive cruise control somewhere in their lineup
I’d argue the difference is that _every_ vehicle Tesla sells today is cable of being upgraded to the latest state of autonomy—just by an OTA software update and/or flipping some feature flags. While the claim of full Level 5 autonomy without lidar is controversial, it’s possible that most Teslas on the road today will be capable of being upgraded to L5 capability via a software update.
All that said, the QA issues in those photos are pretty jarring. No excuses there.
Sounds like you might not have "experienced being a Tesla owner". There are a ton of Tesla's which, according to the company, will definitely require hardware updates for full self-driving.
https://www.tesla.com/support/full-self-driving-computer
They're not a tech company, but they think (and loudly say) they are, and that causes these kinds of problems. Using tech jargon does not a tech company make.
How can you claim the current hardware on Teslas is capable of L5 when they haven’t even demonstrated L4 capability? Just saying it’s capable for full autonomy doesn’t actually make it so, they need to actually prove it.
Also, you (and Elon Musk) talk about Level 5 so casually when all the self driving companies out there strictly claim to aim for only Level 4.
The question was why it is possible. Not why "it should work today", nor "why it will most definitely 100% happen guaranteed in the next couple of years".
The real answer is nobody knows whether current hardware is enough or not, including Tesla. Until they demonstrate it, it’s just a claim. But they can’t sell the cars on FSD promise if they say it.
Theoretically, yes. But that’s different than confidently claiming it’s “perfectly possible” and that it’s only a question of computation and modeling.
"it’s possible that most Teslas on the road today will be capable of being upgraded to L5 capability via a software update."
He didn't say it will definitely guaranteed happen.
The antonym of the word possible is impossible, which if you try in that same sentence you'll see that it doesn't make any sense that way.
While I personally don't agree with your claim that "tesla categorically saying" those things, the poster still did say it even less.
This is what Tesla claim:
You are welcome to present any links or quotes as to where you got the idea that Tesla claims that the vechicle is guaranteed to have FSD in some specific claimed time period (including a time period within each individual vechicle's lifespan).I also personally know several Tesla owners and none of them interpret the company's claims the way you do. So who are all these people who you think are defrauded or lied to? Where are all the angry buyers who thought they were getting Level 5?
I'm responding to Tesla's official claims about FSD hardware.
> You are welcome to present any links or quotes as to where you got the idea that Tesla claims that the vechicle is guaranteed to have FSD in some specific claimed time period (including a time period within each individual vechicle's lifespan).
Way to move the goal post. This whole thread is about hardware, not OTA software updates or a timeframe to deliver FSD. They've repeatedly claimed since 2016 that all Teslas have necessary hardware for Level 5 functionality. I've explained in this comment chain why that claim is disingenuous.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/19/13340938/tesla-autopilot... and repeated Elon Musk tweets.
This reminds me of something or rather some people as it oozes marketing speak when the experience of being a [product] owner is being talked about.
> not unlike an iPhone is a computer in your hand
And there it is.
No, most people would just describe this as 'general poor quality'.
Six Sigma quality manufacturing is all based on reducing deviation and defects - these are red flags.
And although they might not know to check these things, I think if you explained to the average consumer that some cars are 25% lower to the ground, while some are 25% higher, because of general manufacturing inaccuracy, they wouldn't be impressed.
Too many decades of Americans buying whatever car happens to be sitting on the lot today (usually in silver paint with beige interior) means that most vehicles aren't available with any real selection of options (they're typically packaged together), no interesting paint colors, and dealers that are uninterested in finding what you actually want. It's staggering to me that people apparently feel they don't have any power to get what they want when laying out a huge chunk of money.
Source: ordered a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Couldn't order 15" wheels with premium trim. Ordered a spare tire, and got the built-in vacuum instead (this worked out OK, the donut spare, ordered separately, fits under in the middle seat stowage, if you finagle it). Still would have prefered 15" wheels over 17" or whatever we had to order, but not enough to buy new wheels. Would not recommend buying that early in the model cycle, but that's somewhat separate from ordering; except that they had no Pacificas on the lot to sell anyway, so it wasn't too hard to convince them to order one.
>“In Hong Kong, any new car demands a 100 percent tax. Electric cars had no tax, so I bought the Model S and the Model X. Now we have to pay a 25-percent tax on EVs, which is still lower than with regular combustion-engined vehicles, but what will happen to the company when these incentives are over? Will people still want to buy cars that seem to come from a junkyard?”
He's not complaining about the service, because the car is half the price of any other car. It's like complaining that a Chevrolet Aveo is small and the engine is underpowered.
he doesn't even have what he paid for though
Things that happen in Silicon Valley and also the Soviet Union:
- waiting years to receive a car you ordered, to find that it's of poor workmanship and quality
— In 10 years what difference does it make?
— I have the plumber in the morning.”
(Russian jokes told by Reagan)
Translation:
There were also extreme cases. Some of them were so sloppy that they prevented safe participation in road traffic. One of the readers of “Motor” received the FSO 1500, in which a factory defect in the body made its driving almost impossible. In the TV program “Kram”, aired on October 12, 1986, an interview was conducted with a man who found 41 defects in a new car he had bought. After consulting with an expert, it was found that there were 45 of them. There was an opinion that in order to drive the new Polonez without any problems, it was necessary to invest 100,000 zlotys in its renovation (~10% of total value). These cars, however, passed the zero inspection without any problems. The sentence of one of the engineers working at FSM can be considered the best justification for this: “People will buy any car”
Jeez, I was thinking of getting a model Y but some of these stories are scary.
Also the video and images in the link show some pretty bad quality engineering.
Tesla has also apparently just ended their money-back guarantee. Tough to imagine buying a new one now. Maybe a year or two old, where you can fully inspect it before committing. I don't know that I want to deal with their service either though. Fortunately there are a lot more EVs coming on the market now.
I have a gas car / hybrid for the 100mile+ road trips we take once every 60 days.
And I have an EV for the daily driver. Nissan Leaf has more than enough range (for daily driving) cost 6-7k, insurance is $20/month, and I’ve yet to have any maintenance issues.
Disclosure: I’ve joined the suspension class action in the US.
I have two colleagues who got Model X's, they both drove as much Model S the first 6 months (at least) after getting the vehicle as the quality was so subpar. One door had to be repainted because the gull wings were scraping against eachother, panel gaps, the car started to kernel panic after an update and was immobilized, the list goes on (This is only what i know off, i stopped asking after awhile).
It's only a sample size of two, but I've never heard of anything like it before. I wouldn't want that from a 1.5MSEK purchase. The problem is that they won't just magically become better without lowering production speeds, which they can't to because then the stock might just finally pop. So buying a Tesla you're stuck getting something rushed together rather sloppily. Go Lexus/Toyota unless you really need the Tesla "cool factor" but rather a good vehicle.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/top/?t=year
Despite recent events, I don't think this is necessarily a safe assumption. Many of Hong Kong's organisations, such as the ICAC (Independent Commission against Corruption) originate from the previous British administration and will be very different from any corresponding organisations in the PRC.
Part of why this keeps happening is Elon knows it’s possible to deliver x many cars so he pushes even if it hurts quality. They end up pulling it off and that ends up as justification to push harder. Probably cheaper in the long run to fix the cars post sale. I’ve had a few issues but they fixed without question.
A car door that doesn't quite shut and lets water in is a major annoyance, but if they start breaking down left right and centre, that could crush them. Among established car brands, failure rates are a major decision factor.
Or maybe it will turn out these are mostly superficial issues, who knows. I'm not convinced.