Unknown to analysts, investors and the hundreds of thousands of customers who signed up to buy it, as recently as early September major portions of the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand, away from the automated production line, according to people familiar with the matter.
While the car’s production began in early July, the advanced assembly line Tesla has boasted of building still wasn’t fully ready as of a few weeks ago, the people said. Tesla’s factory workers had been piecing together parts of the cars in a special area while the company feverishly worked to finish the machinery designed to produce Model 3’s at a rate of thousands a week, the people said.
Automotive experts say it is unusual to be building large parts of a car by hand during production. “That’s not how mass production vehicles are made,” said Dennis Virag, a manufacturing consultant who has worked in the automotive industry for 40 years. “That’s horse-and-carriage type manufacturing. That’s not today’s automotive world.”
In a statement, a Tesla spokeswoman declined to answer questions for this article and said, “For over a decade, the WSJ has relentlessly attacked Tesla with misleading articles that, with few exceptions, push or exceed the boundaries of journalistic integrity. 0117名無しさん＠そうだドライブへ行こう (ｽｯﾌﾟ Sdfa-NfgV)2017/10/08(日) 09:05:14.90ID:IweG0+Krd>>85 じいさんだから70km/hくらいで走ってるんだよ（笑） 0118名無しさん＠そうだドライブへ行こう (ｻｻｸｯﾃﾛ Sp75-oCDh)2017/10/08(日) 09:05:27.43ID:9tTiVN+bp While it is possible that this article could be an exception, that is extremely unlikely.” The Journal disagrees with the company’s categorization of its journalism.Musk has staked Tesla’s future (not to mention the company’s massively inflated valuation) on the success of the Model 3, which was intended to be Tesla’s first attempt at building an electric vehicle for “mass market” consumers, priced at a relatively affordable $35,000 a car.
Tesla introduced the Model 3 at an event outside the company’s factory in July, when Chief Executive Elon Musk drove a shiny red Model 3 onstage as hundreds of his employees cheered the first sedans rolling off the production line.
Within minutes of stepping out of the new vehicle, Tesla’s leader warned his engineers and designers the coming months would be challenging. “Frankly, we’re going to be in production hell. Welcome, welcome!” he said to laughter. Behind the scenes, Tesla had fallen weeks behind in finishing the manufacturing systems to build the vehicle.
Tesla’s rollout of the Model X sport-utility vehicle in 2015 also was plagued by quality and design issues that left suppliers scrambling and hourly workers having to rush to meet lofty goals. And with employees at the company’s Fremont factory telling WSJ that it could be another month before the assembly line is ready, the production problems plaguing the Model 3 could pose a much bigger threat to the company’s long-term financial health. 0119名無しさん＠そうだドライブへ行こう (ｻｻｸｯﾃﾛ Sp75-oCDh)2017/10/08(日) 09:05:38.50ID:9tTiVN+bp One worker who spent time in the Model 3 shop―dubbed by some as Area 51 because of the limited access and secretive nature ―described watching young workers in September struggling to move large pieces of steel to weld together instead of using robots as is traditionally the case.
“In place of the robots…you’ve got two associates lining up with a big, old spot welder hanging from the ceiling by a chain, and you’ve got one associate kind of like balancing it and trying to get the welder in position, and you’ve got another welder with his arm guiding it,” this worker recalled seeing. “Sparks go flying.”
In August, Mr. Musk told analysts that the Model 3s coming out of the factory were “not engineering validation units.”
“They’re fully certified, fully DOT-approved, EPA-approved production cars,” Mr. Musk said, referring to the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency. “These are not prototypes in any way. They’re not validation anything. They are full production cars.” 0120名無しさん＠そうだドライブへ行こう (ﾜｯﾁｮｲWW 9a10-nTG0)2017/10/08(日) 09:08:24.35ID:zlgRqkXG0>>116 なんだ、ソースのない噂レベルの記事じゃん。普段の行いが悪いからテスラに質問に答えてもらえないなんて、笑けるな。 0121名無しさん＠そうだドライブへ行こう (ﾜｯﾁｮｲW 7645-oCDh)2017/10/08(日) 09:12:03.28ID:ocBYZdGJ0 2ちゃんねんの自浄作用（良いものはスレ中信者が優勢、ポンコツなものはステマ、工作員が劣勢） についてこのスレはステマ、工作員が劣勢という事ですよね？
