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Factory is shut for the week of July 27 for retooling for model X?
- Thread starter throwawayaccount
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Bangor Bob
Member
Last week they shut down, and this week the factory produced some Xes. Just not ones to be sold...
Meh.....I'll take what I can get. Pleasing forum members is harder than pleasing my parents growing up. I only post info that I feel confident about and won't reveal my source(s).
Post what ya got. Grumbling aside, we're big boys (and girls) and can decide for ourselves what to believe.
NigelM
Recovering Member
The source(s) that told you:
Sorry we didn't get more excited; maybe next time.
At least Twiddler's rumor of initially building cars for demo/test event purposes could fit with this description. Nowhere does it claim that the production isn't continuing either.
It is true OPs "high-gear" comment is not confirmed, but then I personally always felt it was excessively interpreted on TMC. I don't think OP ever meant to claim maximum capacity. I said so earlier in this thread (and was ignored as usual
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I' claim absolutely nobody active on TMC believed the shutdown would be just for Model X. The Mercedes factory guy made a good description how such events usually affect all models at a factory.
Now, I agree OP may have used hyperbole wording, but personally I find it plausible he/she had real info to base it on. Whether the hyperbole is due to his/her own editorial or on the part of his/her source, I don't know of course.
I heard from a source when I stopped by the local Smothie King that the Model X will also come in white. My source may not be traditional and anything you can verify but it has as much credibly as any other anonymous source. You heard it here first.
At least Twiddler's rumor of initially building cars for demo/test event purposes could fit with this description. Nowhere does it claim that the production isn't continuing either.
It is true OPs "high-gear" comment is not confirmed, but then I personally always felt it was excessively interpreted on TMC. I don't think OP ever meant to claim maximum capacity. I said so earlier in this thread (and was ignored as usual
I agreed with you AR. In fact, I ignored all the speculation on the term "high gear", as it means absolutely nothing. It is not a quantitative term. If someone told me that production was going into "high gear", I would immediately dismiss that information as totally meaningless.
NigelM
Recovering Member
dsm363, check my earlier post. The production levels are (a) high (b) insane (c) ludicrous and (d) maximum plaid. In fact, "high gear" is the slowest setting on the production line.
The point I'm trying to make is that "high gear" is absolutely meaningless because its subjective. Any production (even 1 car) is high gear compared to zero cars. There is no number associated with the term "high gear", so you can't extract any quantitative measure from it.
Words Are Hard (WAH). I keep repeating that to myself everytime I go to bed (WAH WAH WAH)
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Good one!
When you start a new model, you don't start it at anything close to the planned production rate. My understanding is that Tesla will be building the Model X through the same assembly line as MS. (We did this at Mercedes with building the R-Class on same line as the M-Class).
First you start assembly of the first new one (called "Job 1"), sandwiching it into normal production (meaning MS, MX, MS in the assembly sequence). This can cause a bit of a slowdown of the assembly line; but photos I have seen showed that Tesla is using automatic guided carts or something similar (rather than a conventional conveyor line) - this means that they can direct a vehicle out of the line fairly easily if need be - if so, the impact to MS production is minimal. Their TAKT time is measured in minutes anyway, so they have time to work with (unlike Toyota with a 40 second TAKT).
That Job 1 vehicle will receive special attention but should go together OK, as you normally wouldn't start it unless you know you have all the parts; and these should be production-ready parts, which means they should all fit pretty well. QC will be working a lot on alignment of parts (i.e., fit and finish on outside, and making sure things like bolt holes and inserting parts line up inside).
If Job 1 is a disaster - which can happen - no further MXs will be started until issues ironed out. If Job 1 goes smoothly, they will start MXs at some rate, such as (at first) starting one MX after every 20 MSs, then one MX after every 15 MSs, etc., working the rate gradually up to the planned production rate.
The ramp up depends on several things - usually first and foremost the suppliers. Often suppliers have as much trouble running at rate as the assembly plant - they have people to train, tooling to adjust, QC to do, etc., just like the OEM - just that there are a lot more of them. At Mercedes, our experience was usually that supplier problems caused more slowdowns and plant shutdowns than anything that happened at the plant. In some cases it got so bad that MB had to impose monetary penalties on suppliers (as allowable by the purchasing contract); an OEM tries to avoid that but sometimes has to do this to "get the attention" of supplier upper management. (OEMs get hurt if suppliers go bankrupt, so this has to be used judiciously).
So you see, there is no such thing as starting a new model "at high gear." It can't be done.
That said, a lot depends on how well the pre-production went. Since Tesla reduced their forecast for yearly production from 55k to 50k-55k, I would guess the preproduction was difficult, and issues remain.
Once production starts (at whatever rate), often the OEM will build a number of "press cars" and "show cars" which get special attention because they will be examined, reviewed, and often driven by media people. As you could imagine, these take a lot of time, because they need to be perfect - in many cases, some parts (such as a set of seats) may be swapped out entirely in repair, in case there is a flaw (no matter how small) in one of the parts. This can even come down to slight mis-matches in color or even wood grain on high end models such as Mercedes, Tesla, etc.
So I would caution against holding your breath for volume production. They will get there eventually.
FredTMC
Model S VIN #4925
Tesla's was using guided carts over a year ago, but since then they use an overhead conveyor that was originally used by the NUMI factory.
Conveyor techniques
Interesting. Well, I've seen or worked with several arrangements that use a mix of different conveyor transport methods, each appropriate to the part of the plant. Specifically, at the MB plant, once the body was built, it traveled on a floor conveyor to paint, then went on an overhead hanger for plating, then on a floor conveyor for color coat & clearcoat; then into a buffer; once assembly started it went on an overhead conveyor - except for the doors, which had been painted with the body for color match but then removed for the first part of assembly (to eliminate door damage from doing things like installing seats and cockpit), which went on an overhead hanger system; meantime, the power train/chassis was on a separate floor conveyor and was pushed up into the body at the marriage station, shortly after which the whole car went on a floor conveyor; but there were some cases where assembly included a guided cart in certain places (good for models requiring a lot of manual assembly - they do this with the MB S Class). I hope someday to be able to do a plant tour at Fremont to get an eyeball on it.
Interesting. Well, I've seen or worked with several arrangements that use a mix of different conveyor transport methods, each appropriate to the part of the plant. Specifically, at the MB plant, once the body was built, it traveled on a floor conveyor to paint, then went on an overhead hanger for plating, then on a floor conveyor for color coat & clearcoat; then into a buffer; once assembly started it went on an overhead conveyor - except for the doors, which had been painted with the body for color match but then removed for the first part of assembly (to eliminate door damage from doing things like installing seats and cockpit), which went on an overhead hanger system; meantime, the power train/chassis was on a separate floor conveyor and was pushed up into the body at the marriage station, shortly after which the whole car went on a floor conveyor; but there were some cases where assembly included a guided cart in certain places (good for models requiring a lot of manual assembly - they do this with the MB S Class). I hope someday to be able to do a plant tour at Fremont to get an eyeball on it.
NigelM
Recovering Member
Cool video. It goes pretty fast (sped up from real timing of course). I didn't get a good understanding of what part of assembly was included, but it is possible to see how the vehicle is transported several different ways. I noticed there is adjustment of vehicle height at different points in the video - probably ergonomic (e.g., low to install seats, high to install wheels).
An assembly hall usually has multiple lines, and each vehicle turns around at the end of each line to go into the next one - these turn-around points are sometimes used to pull a vehicle off that has some problem that will preclude going through the next line. This is how you cope with introduction of a new model in a conventional conveyor (i.e., not guided cart) where there are still remaining problems with assembly but you want to try it anyway. Lines have names like "Trim 1," "Trim 2," etc., as a shorthand to indicate the operations of that line; there might be a breakout point between Trim 1 and Trim 2 for example. When you take the vehicle off the conveyor, you load it on a manual carrying cart, to put aside until ready to put it back on the line.
Sorry if I'm getting off topic; but I thought viewers of this thread would like to have more appreciation for why delays in assembly startup are so common.
An assembly hall usually has multiple lines, and each vehicle turns around at the end of each line to go into the next one - these turn-around points are sometimes used to pull a vehicle off that has some problem that will preclude going through the next line. This is how you cope with introduction of a new model in a conventional conveyor (i.e., not guided cart) where there are still remaining problems with assembly but you want to try it anyway. Lines have names like "Trim 1," "Trim 2," etc., as a shorthand to indicate the operations of that line; there might be a breakout point between Trim 1 and Trim 2 for example. When you take the vehicle off the conveyor, you load it on a manual carrying cart, to put aside until ready to put it back on the line.
Sorry if I'm getting off topic; but I thought viewers of this thread would like to have more appreciation for why delays in assembly startup are so common.
NigelM
Recovering Member
brucet999
Active Member
Thank you for getting off topic. Your insights are extremely helpful for the rest of us to understand a little bit of why things don't go as fast as we might like.
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