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Could a significant number of pre-configured, finalized Model 3s already exist...?

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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
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.
 
Already a rumor out there that this is what they've done ...

https://model3ownersclub.com/threads/july-surprise.3983/

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.
 
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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.

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.
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.
Robin
 
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Early cars have issues.
These issues are detected by people driving and using them.
You don't want to produce a thousand of them and hide them only to find that hundreds of them have a common issue that would have been corrected earlier if people were driving them.
This almost certainly all 3s built are being used as much as possible.
 
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.
 
I think this theory is unlikely because Elon said Tesla wants to be able to quickly react to and fix defects (which is why their rollout plan is what it is). So if they had already made 'a significant number' (maybe a couple thousand) and THEN they discover a defect, it's quite a bit more difficult to address than if they fix the problem before production of the same cars.
 
This would be a good strategy, because it would allow for a wider "beta test". The entire reason they're starting with employees/CA-area current owners is to work all the kinks out.

If they've secretly run through a few thousand units, they have more to test and can gather more relevant assembly line tuning data quickly.....
 
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.


It is possible to build the entire car, with the battery pack being the final piece installed. If GF1 output is what they're claiming it to be, they've already assembled thousands of packs since going live.
 
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.

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.

From The Man's tweetstorm overnight... News coming on Sunday. My guess: We'll get a mention in the 2Q delivery numbers, either that the first production vehicle just came off the line or will be coming off the line next week, as you suggested.
 
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.
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.
 
Regarding 100's of pre-built .......... not likely, unless they were assembled elsewhere.
I have not visited the Fremont plant, but others have and they have not reported seeing 3's being assembled there.

That said ... the RC's were assembled somewhere. Might that "somewhere" have had the capacity to assemble 100's? Who knows?