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A few VINs spotted on the line yesterday (& Canadian sigs). + Informal Color Census

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JoshG

Member
Jun 23, 2011
440
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Well, this is a longshot, but maybe the eager owners happen to be members here and would like to know I spotted their cars on the final stages of the assembly line yesterday at my factory pickup event.

We weren't allowed cameras, nor even pen/paper to take notes, so i spotted and remembered 3 VINs we happened to pass.

Signature VIN 1030 - Car looked complete in a holding area for what I think was final testing. It was not in a "problem resolution" area. Seems from that VIN it should have been delivered a while ago, but looked perfect and didn't have notes on the windshield identifying rework or problem areas. Was simply in a long line of cars in final testing area.

Signature VIN 2067 - not a typo, it was definitely Sig and carried vin 2067. Our tour guide speculated it was a Canadian Signature car. Beautiful, seemed ready to go, right behind VIN 1030 described above.

And by any chance is the future owner of the beautiful green Production VIN 1993 on the board? I begged to go take a closer look at this car, the only green one in a huge sea of final assembly/inspection cars. 1993 is on its way - really stunning, though the lights in the factory were not ideal to appreciate the subleties of the green color until you got close and could walk around it.

Saw tons of white (~25%? - impossible to tell from our distance and from the lighting which white was which), tons of Sig Red (20%?) tons of dark grey (15%?), bunch of black (15%?), a smaller number of blue (10%?), a very few silver (5%?), a smattering of brown (5%?), and just that single green car throughout the whole tour. Alas not a single (new) Red, but the tour guide said he saw his first one yesterday. (of course tons of body-in-white, pre-paint).

Wish I could have reported on more, we must have seen 250-300 cars in some state of production or test, but the limits of my memory (and the watchful tour guides) precluded me from trying to get more details on other vehicles.
 
Nice recon... and memory.

Ha... i felt bad. I was walking around saying over and over in my head "1030, 2067... 1030, 2067..." and worried if I found another VIN I'd forget the first couple. 1993 was easy to add at the end, and I was finally able to whip out my phone and type those numbers into a blank email. Getting old. Will have to get back to my Lumosity training! :) (mods can remove if that violates some link policy... not intending to spam/promote!)
 
Also... found it somewhat strange there was no apparent order to vins that were at a certain spot in the line. could jump 100s or 1000s of Vin numbers, forward or back, right after each other on the line. Same with paint colors... while they're obviously batching based on components, it's NOT batched in any obvious way by wheel type or paint along the line. Thought we'd see a whole flight of black in sequence, then grey, etc. Nope, at any point in the line or at any station, or in final test area there was no apparent ordering of colors, could see black, black, white, red, black, grey, grey, blue, black... seemed very random.

- - - Updated - - -

Did you see any textile seats?

I'm curious if that's holding up production...
Wow, actually now that you mention it, there's an area of the factory where the seat supplier leases out space, and there were near endless rows of seats on palettes, and I believe they were ALL leather. Saw black, grey, tan... some with piping. But I DON'T think I saw any textile seats at all, unless it's just really hard to tell the difference? Now I'm kicking myself for not paying particular attention to that as we were in the "sea of seats" area. Sorry. Someone else going on the tour soon should pay better attention at that point in the tour.
 
[WIKI][/WIKI]
Also... found it somewhat strange there was no apparent order to vins that were at a certain spot in the line. could jump 100s or 1000s of Vin numbers, forward or back, right after each other on the line. Same with paint colors... while they're obviously batching based on components, it's NOT batched in any obvious way by wheel type or paint along the line. Thought we'd see a whole flight of black in sequence, then grey, etc. Nope, at any point in the line or at any station, or in final test area there was no apparent ordering of colors, could see black, black, white, red, black, grey, grey, blue, black... seemed very

Great report! Couple questions (for your memory!).

You were in the factory on Saturday - did it seem like a 'regular' production day?

Did it appear that all areas of the factory were working an 'overtime' shift? Or, were certain areas working a six day week?

Do you think they are working two shifts during the week?
 
I am reservation number 2823 (green) and asked yesterday if I had a VIN assigned. Several more weeks was the answer.

Hello Lloyd,

Thank you for contacting Tesla Motors.

I am a member of the ownership experience team, and will be happy to assist you with your inquiry.



I checked your latest information, but it seems like a VIN has not been assigned to you yet.

Since your delivery time frame is Dec-Jan 2013, it may take a few more weeks until you get a VIN.

Please feel free to check back, as we are happy to share the latest information we have at that time.



Thank you very much for your patience.



Best regards,


Naomi Takeuchi
 
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Part of the problem is very few people ordered Textile seats I think.

They have had textile seats in demos and test drive cars for a while, but out of all of these deliveries and VIN updates I don't see anyone with Textile other then me! I imagine the black leather would be hard to tell from the textile.

As to the batching, I'm telling you guys they must be batching based on location in order to deliver as many cars as possible!

Appreciate the update!
 
Great report! Couple questions (for your memory!).

You were in the factory on Saturday - did it seem like a 'regular' production day?

Did it appear that all areas of the factory were working an 'overtime' shift? Or, were certain areas working a six day week?

Do you think they are working two shifts during the week?

Factory was operational, line was moving, but the tour guide said it was moving at a slower pace, with fewer human workers around, than it was on Friday. No area was "dark" or offline... but seemed like a skeleton crew moving the line forward at maybe 1/4 the pace of what it could? But not sure that isn't just a function of where they are on the ramp-up of production rate. Could be that's close to their maximum now while they assess quality at this speed. There were workers walking, biking, scooting around in all areas. Definitely the desk-job areas were almost abandoned. Saw Elon's desk amid about 60 others... virtually no one at the desk-job area. Another person posted here they took the same tour at 4pm and were disappointed that some areas weren't running at all. we didn't have that experience, every area was moving.

- - - Updated - - -

Hilarious thread. Maybe the next person on tour wants to 'wire up' beforehand? :wink:
Yes, members could chip in and equip upcoming tour-taker with these. http://www.spyville.com/spy-camera-eyeglasses.html :biggrin:
 
Part of the problem is very few people ordered Textile seats I think.

They have had textile seats in demos and test drive cars for a while, but out of all of these deliveries and VIN updates I don't see anyone with Textile other then me! I imagine the black leather would be hard to tell from the textile.

From a distance, definitely. I ordered textile, but yeah, leather seems very popular. For new-pricing reservations, I wonder if there'll be more people going textile.

- - - Updated - - -

Also... found it somewhat strange there was no apparent order to vins that were at a certain spot in the line. could jump 100s or 1000s of Vin numbers, forward or back, right after each other on the line. Same with paint colors... while they're obviously batching based on components, it's NOT batched in any obvious way by wheel type or paint along the line. Thought we'd see a whole flight of black in sequence, then grey, etc. Nope, at any point in the line or at any station, or in final test area there was no apparent ordering of colors, could see black, black, white, red, black, grey, grey, blue, black... seemed very random.

There could be other things that make things break up, right? Would some components (e.g., tech package) result in more time in some spots, thus other cars get "ahead" by a spot or three and the colours wind up looking more random? Or does paint just not matter?
 
And by any chance is the future owner of the beautiful green Production VIN 1993 on the board? I begged to go take a closer look at this car, the only green one in a huge sea of final assembly/inspection cars. 1993 is on its way - really stunning, though the lights in the factory were not ideal to appreciate the subleties of the green color until you got close and could walk around it.

I'm P2420 and have green, but I haven't been given a VIN yet. Here's hoping... :love:
 
And by any chance is the future owner of the beautiful green Production VIN 1993 on the board? I begged to go take a closer look at this car, the only green one in a huge sea of final assembly/inspection cars. 1993 is on its way - really stunning, though the lights in the factory were not ideal to appreciate the subleties of the green color until you got close and could walk around it.
Your report makes me very happy. My green VIN 1536 was already on an east-bound truck when you were at the factory, but I'm glad to hear that the green color caught your eye!
 
Your report makes me very happy. My green VIN 1536 was already on an east-bound truck when you were at the factory, but I'm glad to hear that the green color caught your eye!
Indeed... I like many of the colors, but there's only ONE that makes me occasionally question my having passed it up for black. I dislike the idea of a green car, but I love the particular execution of deep, rich green that Tesla chose. Really stunning.
 
Factory was operational, line was moving, but the tour guide said it was moving at a slower pace, with fewer human workers around, than it was on Friday. No area was "dark" or offline... but seemed like a skeleton crew moving the line forward at maybe 1/4 the pace of what it could? But not sure that isn't just a function of where they are on the ramp-up of production rate. Could be that's close to their maximum now while they assess quality at this speed.
I have been told they run flat-out during the week and then during weekends they focus on efficiency improvements and things to get the line to move faster the following week. So it's a different pace on the weekends but still a lot of work being done.