N5329K
Active Member
Wouldn't it be a lot easier to hide a gaggle of final production cars in warehouses than to hide the automated manufacturing lines needed to build them?
Robin
Robin
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Why couldn't lines already be up and humming along? Tesla's employees seem to be very good at keeping secrets/protecting company info. Gotta wonder how long the reveal Model 3s were around before being unveiled to the public. Outside of maybe a slight uncovering of a clay model, no one outside of the company seems to have had any idea about what to expect prior to 3/31/2016.Wouldn't it be a lot easier to hide a gaggle of final production cars in warehouses than to hide the automated manufacturing lines needed to build them?
Robin
Already a rumor out there that this is what they've done ...
https://model3ownersclub.com/threads/july-surprise.3983/
Well, I thought some folks who attended the recent mass factory tour saw the Model 3 line still coming together, uncrated but not in anything like operation.Why couldn't lines already be up and humming along? Tesla's employees seem to be very good at keeping secrets/protecting company info. Gotta wonder how long the reveal Model 3s were around before being unveiled to the public. Outside of maybe a slight uncovering of a clay model, no one outside of the company seems to have had any idea about what to expect prior to 3/31/2016.
Elon has shown us nothing if not that just because something has never been done before, doesn't mean that it can't or won't be done.
Question: Could a significant number of pre-configured, finalized Model 3s already exist...?
Answer: Yes
Question: Could a significant number of pre-configured, finalized Model 3s NOT exist...?
Answer: Yes
I don't believe this rumor. Frankly it's stuff like this that gets everyone's hopes up and then folks get angry when they forget that rumors don't equal truth.
10 days ago, on July 19th Electrek published an article that referenced Tesla's CTO saying that cell production was starting now. A separate article talked about how all the RC car battery packs have been built by hand up until now. There's no way that Tesla is stockpiling thousands of Model 3's somewhere with hand built battery packs, still misaligned panel gaps (we have all seen the pics) and no automated production line up and running (at least as of the last report from the Factory tour invitees)
Nothing besides a single rumor is pointing to stockpiling of cars, and many other sources, taken together, are in fact pointing to just the opposite.
Sorry to dash your hopes guys I wish it were true.
HomeThe problem with there being warehouses full of Model 3s already made is that they would need to get from the factory to the warehouses without anyone noticing. That seems unlikely.
If they have hundreds of cars built already, I'd like to see some of those delivered to stores as demo cars much sooner than the "late 2017" date they had temporarily posted via a pop-up on their website (and confirmed via e-mail to those who tried to schedule a Model 3 test drive). If they don't have enough demo cars for all stores at the same time, they can roll them out in the same sequence they plan to deliver the car.
Doesn't Tesla usually close down the factory for a week or two at the beginning of every quarter for retooling? My guess is that "Job 1" (as referenced earlier in this thread) will be produced right after the factory gets up and running again after the July shutdown.
If the production rate is anywhere near what they are hoping, producing a couple showroom and demo cars for all the showrooms in the US would take a day or two at the most. I do agree with the stockpiling or switching to other countries for a time though. I think it will depend on how much they need to shift the date by. If it looks like they might hit it early in a quarter I don't know that they'll be able to shift things around that much for that long.smart way to do it would be to fulfill their employee cars so they have real world testing. when they get close to 200K US cars, which should happen this year, switch gears and start producing showroom cars and demos. Hopefully that'll get us to Q1 or close enough where they can stockpile a thousand or two..that'll maximize tax credits and ensure the car is thoroughly tested before it hits normal consumers.