It's time for Elon Musk to stop making Tesla promises he can't keep
Tesla Model 3 production really is hell.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s founder and CEO, warned us in July as he delivered the first 30 all-electric Model 3 cars to buyers who also happened to be employees.
SEE ALSO:Driving a Tesla Model 3 is pretty damn awesome“The major challenge you face with the Model 3 is not with the product itself -- it’s an amazing car -- but we're going to go through basically about six months of manufacturing hell,” said Musk in July.
On Monday, Tesla reported it has produced just 260 Tesla Model 3 cars, its first mass-market all-electric sedan, in the last quarter. That’s approximately 120 cars a month, a number that would be less distressing if Musk himself hadn’t predicted producing as many as 20,000 Model 3 cars a month by December of this year.
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Tesla reported half a million Model 3 pre-orders in late July. At the company’s current production pace, Tesla Model 3 customer 500,000 might not see her all-electric sedan until the year 2363.
What’s far more likely is that it will be a few years or more before Tesla gets through all its orders, and those who ordered first will endure the highest level of frustration as their cars will probably be delayed the most. A lot of people in the middle of the product delivery queue could receive their Model 3’s at the same time and, eventually, ordering a Model 3 could be as easy and commonplace as buying a Ford Focus.
It will probably work this way because we are on the flat end of the S-curve manufacturing efficiency trend Musk explained in July.
“The biggest challenge we face here is getting the S curve manufacturing. That S proportion is us going through hell, basically. I have high confidence that we’ll get to the end of S curve, but it is almost impossible to predict the exact shape of it in the interim period,” said Musk in July.
Does Musk's tendency to talk production numbers hurt Tesla?Credit: lance ulanoff/mashableThis is Elon Musk with his showman cap off, doing his best to explain the fundamental realities of virtually any manufacturing process: They start off slow with low output as the production line works out manufacturing and supply kinks and then curve dramatically up as the buffer of available parts builds. Production speeds up dramatically until it flattens out again, but at a higher, more sustainable pace.
This is not the kind of information consumers like to hear, so Musk is often hesitant to deliver it, leaving numbers like 20,000 by the end of December and 500,000 by the end of next year out there for consumers to spin into unrealistic expectations.
Musk is only slightly more circumspect when talking to investors. Just days after the first Model 3 deliveries, Musk told them on an earning call.
What we have ahead of us, of course, is an incredibly difficult production ramp. Nonetheless, I think we've got a great team, and I'm very confident that we will be able to reach a production rate of 10,000 vehicles per week towards the end of next year. And we remain, we believe, on track to achieve a 5,000-unit week by the end of this year.
So, I would simply urge people to not get too caught up in what exactly falls within the exact calendar boundaries of a quarter, one quarter or the next, because when you have an exponentially growing production ramp, slight changes of a few weeks here or there can appear to have dramatic changes, but that is simply because of the arbitrary nature of when a quarter ends.
Yes, he still promised 20,000 Model 3 vehicles a month by the end of the year, but warned about how small changes could have big impacts and the need for them to not focus on the boundary dates for quarters.
It’s like he wanted them to hear “end of the year,” but think, “at some point in an indeterminant future.”
Musk said in July that with 30% of the Model 3’s parts sourced from outside the U.S. the Model 3 is subject to “force majeure risk” -- global events, like floods, fires, tornadoes and sunk ships, that could adversely affect the supply chain.
There’s been a lot of calamity in the world in the last few months, but, apparently, it’s not the source of the production issues. “…there are no fundamental issues with the Model 3 production or supply chain,” Tesla said in the release.
It might be a while before you see your Model 3.Credit: lance ulanoff/mashableThe cause is Tesla’s own facilities: “production bottlenecks” at both its Fremont production plant and the massive Gigafactory in Nevada.
Considering how much Musk said Tesla learned from the production hell it went through with its previous Tesla models, this is surprising. Musk recalled in July how the Roadster, its first electric car, was the worst. “We went through hell and then actually did a return journey,” Musk said, “We had to redo almost the entire car and recapitalize the company, which sucked.”
With the Model S, of which there are now more than 230,000 on the road, the company literally worked “night and day and at a maximum sprint pace,” to reach its current 20,000-a-year run rate.
The core lesson: “You have to improve the efficiency of production so you can actually build the 20,000 at a sustainable pace without sucking up weekends and burning a candle at both ends,” said Musk in July.
Based on what Musk told us, the Model 3 is a product of all those lessons. Not only does it have fewer bells and whistles, “there’s nothing in that car that doesn’t need to be there. Everything in the car has a compelling reason,” said Musk.
There were roughly 30 Model 3's ready to go on July 29. Tesla managed to produce another 230 Model 3 cars since then.Credit: lance ulanoff/mashableDoug Field, Tesla’s VP of Engineering said they designed the Model 3 to move as quickly through production as possible, while maintaining as high production quality as possible.
“We have simplified manufacturing process dramatically,” added Musk, “In the same amount of space it takes to build 50,000 Model S’s, we can build 250,000 Model 3s. That’s a five-fold improvement in manufacturing density.” (Musk’s habit of throwing out aspirational production numbers that he knows will be reported far and wide is almost like a tic.)
Where, exactly, those production bottlenecks exist is, since Tesla isn’t saying, anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t take much to slow down a production line like this. As Musk explained in July, “There’s 10,000 unique components in the car and production will move as fast as the slowest one.”
So, it could be the battery pack. It could be the single screen dashboard. It could be the computer controlling it, or it could be the large glass panel that covers much of the car’s roof.
Beyond statements made in the release, Tesla wouldn't comment on the delays.
No matter where it is, the numbers speak for themselves: 260 Model 3 cars off the production line. Even with an S-Curve, it’s is hard to imagine that in fewer than three months, Tesla will rocket to 20,000 a month.
Tesla and Elon Musk are not purposefully lying about delivering these cars. The company has built tens of thousands of Model S and Model X cars. Musk has a track record of execution across multiple companies: Tesla (including Powerwall), SpaceX, the Boring Company.
I’m not doubting Musk’s ability to deliver these cars. They will come, but perhaps Tesla and Musk should stop publicly predicting rapid manufacturing advancements and promising, especially on Twitter where there’s almost no context, big production numbers on any time table.
There are 500,000 customers waiting for their Model 3’s. I think its time for Musk to simply say: You’ll get them when you get them.
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