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Factory Tour
- Thread starter pimp-boy
- Start date
Things have changed. A tram? My 12/31 tour had no tram. I assume the tram comes with a microphone? that would have been nice with a group of 30.
There were young kids on my tour. Babies, young kids, medium kids, and lots of teenagers. Without a tram, trying to keep kids out of places they shouldn't be was entirely the discretion of the parents. The parents on my tour were responsible, but I think it was ridiculous for Tesla to rely on that. I guess I'm glad Tesla made the change before a kid got hurt. Most parents are responsible, but how can Tesla know that you're not the exception that's going to let your 6 yr old run around a working factory?
carrerascott
FUEL FTR
@($*@$*($@!! I had a factory tour scheduled for this Monday (4/1) for several weeks. Just got a call from someone at Tesla that they are not doing any Factory Tours for the first week of April now. He said they are moving machinery around and it would be dangerous to be there so they won't be doing any tours that week. Already booked flights from VA to San Fran just for this tour, already booked nonrefundable hotel in SF, too. So now we're going to do a tour on Sunday (3/31) but it's a day the factory isn't running, so won't be nearly as cool. Really bummed about this...
rlpm
S P85 | Sig X _P90D_
Albeit a bit of a bummer that the factory won't be completely abuzz, think of it this way: many Model S owners will never get to tour the factory. But being the last day of the quarter, surely they will be scrambling to get cars onto direct-delivery trucks to book sales in Q1. So there may be plenty going on!
Sorry to hear but it makes one wonder what moving the machinery around means. Lots of possibilities that could mean improvements in quality, higher production or maybe the first step in optimizing the production line for the Model X. The latter of course is just wishful thinking:smile:
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
Yeah Scott, it may turn out to not be quite as quiet as you think!
I wonder if they're changing the line to improve efficiency or tooling up for higher production numbers?
I wonder if they're changing the line to improve efficiency or tooling up for higher production numbers?
carrerascott
FUEL FTR
Hmm hadn't thought of the extra hubbub that might happen on the last day of the quarter. And why they are moving around the machines, I don't know -- let the speculation begin! 
FredTMC
Model S VIN #4925
Hmm hadn't thought of the extra hubbub that might happen on the last day of the quarter. And why they are moving around the machines, I don't know -- let the speculation begin!
I'm scheduled for tour on Monday as well. Planned for weeks. Driving up from SoCal. I haven't got a call (yet). Sunday will be difficult to do for me. Not happy
rlpm
S P85 | Sig X _P90D_
And why they are moving around the machines, I don't know -- let the speculation begin!
Elon's "put my money where my mouth is" announcement will be that he personally purchased a bunch more robots to increase output to work through the backlog of reservations getting all pending deliveries done by July, including European orders? And once the backlog is empty, they'll start producing Model X? I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.
carrerascott
FUEL FTR
MAPC
#158
I will respond to several of the recent posts in this thread at the same time in my reply:
I picked up my car- #8669 this AM at the factory. It was ready on Monday but I wanted to pick it up and do the tour with my 2 children and my wife and today was the only day that worked with school schedules. The car is AMAZING...but that is subject to discussion on another thread).
Our tour was great- just about an hour. I was told 4 people, over the age of 12, with closed toe shoes. There were approx. 15 people on our tour, in a LONG tram that could have accommodated an additional 20 or so. No microphone though. I agree with the reply that said groups should be kept small so that the experience was good for everyone. Ours was a great experience but a smaller tour would have been a bit better.
No one in our group came with more than 3-4 guests. Mine were the only children but they did seem to be focused on the min age of 12. On the other hand, one guy in the group was wearing flip-flops so so much for the open toe shoe rule.
My biggest take away from the tour: I wish that I could have bought my car in a clearcoated natural aluminum! The raw body parts look fantastic.
I picked up my car- #8669 this AM at the factory. It was ready on Monday but I wanted to pick it up and do the tour with my 2 children and my wife and today was the only day that worked with school schedules. The car is AMAZING...but that is subject to discussion on another thread).
Our tour was great- just about an hour. I was told 4 people, over the age of 12, with closed toe shoes. There were approx. 15 people on our tour, in a LONG tram that could have accommodated an additional 20 or so. No microphone though. I agree with the reply that said groups should be kept small so that the experience was good for everyone. Ours was a great experience but a smaller tour would have been a bit better.
No one in our group came with more than 3-4 guests. Mine were the only children but they did seem to be focused on the min age of 12. On the other hand, one guy in the group was wearing flip-flops so so much for the open toe shoe rule.
My biggest take away from the tour: I wish that I could have bought my car in a clearcoated natural aluminum! The raw body parts look fantastic.
FredTMC
Model S VIN #4925
Krugerrand
Meow
No, it was clearly stated to a poster: "Just got a call from someone at Tesla that they are not doing any Factory Tours for the first week of April now. He said they are moving machinery around and it would be dangerous to be there so they won't be doing any tours that week."
The tours are cancelled because they are moving machinery around, not because production will be halted or slowed. It would be a safety hazard to have non-employees touring around the factory while machinery is being moved about. Can we say 'potential for injury and lawsuit'?
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Well, there can be a number of reasons;
1. The people scheduling tours were not privy to this information
2. There may have been a change of plan/to the timeline by the company/people who are moving the machinery for Tesla
3. It may have originally been scheduled for a later date, but things have changed in Tesla and the machinery needs to be moved sooner rather than later
4. They knew all along, nothing changed, but somebody had a brain fart and booked tours when they should have had the intelligence and foresight to realize you can't have people touring around a factory while machinery is being moved about
Sure, that's the reason, but it doesn't mean the other isn't true. They are probably taking the opportunity to move the machinery around because the factory isn't running.
Krugerrand
Meow
When has Tesla ever cancelled tours because there was no production? Indeed, we've seen several people say they've taken weekend tours and the factory has been very quiet. So why pull some other reason out of the hat when a Tesla employee specifically told a customer that the tours are cancelled because machinery is being moved around?
And who says there will be no production? DrDave? He knows this for a fact because he...works there on the production line?
1. We don't know what machinery, or how much machinery is being moved, but we do know that moving it causes a potential safety hazard therefore 'no tours'
2. We don't know that there will be *no* production, but we might 'assume' it will be slowed or sporatic at points in the line depending on what machinery is being moved.
3. You have no idea what 'they are probably doing', unless you work you there. Do you?
Geez, take a chill pill. And I even agreed with you. All I said is that it sounds reasonable that they might be taking a week off production next week.
Zzzz...
Member
Bummer!
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I want to compare Tesla Model S line to BMW X3 line. X3 are produced at a rate of 445 cars in 16 hours, it takes 30 hours for X3 to be assembled.
This place X3 factory max capacity to ~155,000 cars a year(if plant will work even on weekends).
We know from supplier disclosure that Tesla aim to build 625 cars a week by early autumn. This mean production rate should be 125 cars a day(in 8 hours).
Tesla Model S max production rate could reach ~125,000 cars assuming 4 shifts(each 40 hours) a week(in a week there are 168 hours and 4 shifts common practice for highly automated industries). Sure supply chain should be massively expanded to reach such numbers of Model S produced a year.
Ok, my questions to carrerascott or anyone who will visit the factory soon:
Could you please be soo kind as to ask the guide one of the following questions:
1) How many stations are there on assembly line? OR How long it take for vehicle from entering assembly to finishing the car?
2) May be guide know how long is assembly line(km, meters, miles etc)
3) Recently there was an official announcement that Tesla produce 500 cars a week. Was it done with one shift only?
4) How many people work on assembly line?
Key facts about X3 mentioned on National Geographic MegaFactory video:
445 X3 produced in 16 hours
car spends 128 seconds on stations
more then 3600 welds to build the underbody
over 6500 welds to build body in white
400 robots used to complete body in white
stacker holds over 500 painted bodies until they requested by assembly line
assembly line is a nearly kilometer long(looks like km just in one direction, total after u-turn should be 2km I think)
1800 doors enter subassembly line
80% of the parts delivered on just in time basis
around 1000 ppl work on assembly line
total time it takes to assemble X3 is 30 hours(that mean around 843 stations if we assume 128 seconds per station and 30 hours total time car spends on assembly time).
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Overall I want to understand how much more efforts would be needed to create 200,000 a year GenIII assembly line in comparison to what Tesla already done building Model S assembly line...
Sorry for too many letters to read:redface:
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