Wouldnt that ruin the entertaining part of this thread? The stuff that is being thrown around in terms of speculation and conjecture is pretty imaginative. Knowing whats going on beyond the surface that we are all aware of would all but kill this thread. Then what would we talk about? :wink:
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First P85D adopters stuck in black hole
- Thread starter gpetti
- Start date
Wouldnt that ruin the entertaining part of this thread? The stuff that is being thrown around in terms of speculation and conjecture is pretty imaginative. Knowing whats going on beyond the surface that we are all aware of would all but kill this thread. Then what would we talk about? :wink:
On the contrary, if we all knew what was going on, this thread wouldn't exist at all. For that matter its here so those of us that want to talk about our unique situation can discuss it and share tactics and whatever little information we can glean without annoying people who think we are overreacting or whining. It's clear from your other posts that you don't have a dog in this fight and you don't agree with the general position of the posters so why keep dipping in unless you are trying to stir something up?
LaTache
Member
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
If someone's posts are bothering you, you can always put them on ignore (rather than escalating the conversation). Or not. Just pointing out it's an option for having a peaceful experience.
I guess we still don't have anything conclusive but to me Jerome's more expanded response seemed like a smoking gun, particularly when you take it in the rest of the context. I.e. I don't think the seats are the only problem behind the holdup (though they may be part of it).
- We know that a couple of people (at least) in the group that are stuck don't have Recaro seats
- We know from a few different sources that none of us will get the Recaro seats anyway (though some have hypothesized that the work going on is to replace the seats - at least for some of us)
Jerome's comments:
it takes ten times more labor and time to remove and replace parts from that car than to make it on the production line. We have pulled people from every part of Tesla and hired outside contractors overseen by Tesla personnel to do this.
- Previously Jerome has explicitly mentioned the seats as the problem. In recent emails from forum members I think they have pointed out the reasons why we don't think its just the seats. Now his communique is more generically suggesting various parts - not just seats. Presumably he would talk about removing and replacing seats if that was the only thing.
- This does sound like a huge undertaking for pure seat replacement though naturally I've never installed or removed a seat myself.
If DrDave does have new information naturally I'd love to hear it too.
What?! Blasphemy. That defeats the purpose of the entire internet.
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Seats are kind of a pain, but generally not a huge job overall. I could see two guys spending 60 minutes per car to swap out the fronts and backs with the right tools. (I've done seat swaps on other vehicles in the past...)
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When this is all over, I think we should have a black hole P85D meetup somewhere... lol
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
You're aware that the seats are not bought 'whole', but rather are manufactured at the factory? Various parts are purchased as part of the necessary materials for seat assembly. If just one of the parts (like, say, airbags) were held up at port then --> yes, parts are held up, it's a lot of work to fix, it is about the seats, nothing is at odds in what has been said.
I am not arguing that it might not be more things. Just couldn't let this go by without pointing out that the recent wording is not at odds with what Jerome has said earlier. If you haven't seen the seat operation, you couldn't know that.
It wasn't so much that he referred to parts as the fact that for the first time he stopped explicitly talking about seats which had been the banner cry in earlier emails. Either way it isn't conclusive but he does seem to corroborate theories that the first pile of cars are all off the line and having work done en masse. Still not sure why the non Recaro seat people wouldn't just be released. Anyway, its possible that we'll never know exactly what the hold up is, just that there is a batch of cars that are needing manual intervention.
Please don't speak for me thank you.
'On the contrary' like everyone else, I'm eagerly awaiting a P85D like the thread - I don't necessarily feel like its a black hole but I haven't been waiting as long as most. Regardless actually I do agree that Tesla could be taking a more personal approach with the early adopters. In my case, I'm just choosing to deal with the anticipation focusing on things that I can control and watching the thread...as I understood it, this is a public forum, not yours to tell people whether they can dip in or otherwise. And, like you, I can share...you can simply choose to overlook my post and the mods will determine if I'm appropriate or not.
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How its Made (the TV show) featured the Tesla Model S build earlier this week. I agree with your assessment - it would easily be an hour per car. In fact, it would probably be more given that they would have to test the seats electrics and config in the computer interface - that protocol would likely add to the exchange as well
There was some concerns earlier in the thread about a manual fix later at the Service Center, citing that it *may* be sub par. That said, other than being lifted into the car with machines, they are manually installed by two workers on the assembly line.
EarlyAdopter
Active Member
Maybe they stopped using them, but once upon a time the seats were placed into the car by robot. It's a delicate maneuver to ensure you don't scratch anything. I'd assume they were still normally installed this way.
(It's at minute 3:30. This link will hopefully take you straight there)
Tesla Motors Part 1: Behind the Scenes of How the Tesla Model S is Made-The Window-WIRED - YouTube
(It's at minute 3:30. This link will hopefully take you straight there)
Tesla Motors Part 1: Behind the Scenes of How the Tesla Model S is Made-The Window-WIRED - YouTube
I emailed Jerome. Received a response to say he'll talk to my sales reps tomorrow to review the situation.
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I understand you're eagerly awaiting a P85D but you aren't in the group of people who ordered back in October and started building late November followed by an abrupt stop from which there has been no movement in weeks. Hopefully your car will start building, complete and be delivered as a normal car should be and all will be well. That is not what we are discussing here. I can't tell you not to contribute (and I didn't). I asked you why you were "dipping in". As you can tell many of the posters here stopped posting elsewhere because of negative comments in the other thread where people were sick of us whining about a topic that didn't effect everyone. I started this so people who didn't want to read our comments didn't have to. I'm also not intending to speak for you but reading your posts led to my interpretation that you don't agree with the premise of the thread and or the various posts and your last post seemed to be diminishing the existence of this thread. If I've misinterpreted your posts, I apologize and I'll not call you out any further, particularly if no-one else has a concern.
I don't feel comfortable re-posting Jerome's email to me (yes I realize others have), but the text was very similar to what was pasted in this thread, and he specifically stated that "parts" is referring to seat parts. At least in my case.
Not here. 18 days so far. Meh... I'm happier if they keep it another week and make certain that I'm not getting a lemon.
24 days for me. I think at some point it will drop off my dashboard but in the meantime Im curious to see if it eventually would have flipped if I'd hung in there.
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Thanks. It's possible I misread the email that was posted above but I don't think he'd mentioned seats in that email. Anyway, I'll stop trying to play detective - for now
I guess each person will evaluate whether they feel the car underwent any dramatic work or not and whether they care. As far as the seats go its possible that even for my re-order I might still get the older seats so ther probably isn't much difference there.Thanks. It's possible I misread the email that was posted above but I don't think he'd mentioned seats in that email. Anyway, I'll stop trying to play detective - for now
I don't think you misread, but like I said, while the text of the email I received is in some ways very similar, it is also different in a few key parts which makes the tone seem very different. The way that I understand the situation is that it is primarily an issue about the seats, and grouping shipping. It is clearly a lot of effort for them to swap out 500 car's seats and it's taking time. They are almost certainly trying to batch it by the truckload, so this probably means that certain customers who have older seats are caught up in this. So far, the only deliveries that have actually happened for forum members are actually of "black hole" cars, at the Fremont factory.
I agree that it's discomforting that it's clearly a manual labor intensive job, which is being done by people who do not normally do this work (either Tesla employees from other roles, or contractors), but ultimately, seats are relatively simple installs. We aren't talking about aluminum welding, or rebuilding motors.
As far as I am concerned, the biggest problem with this whole situation still boiled down to communication. If I received an email two weeks ago stating that they identified an issue with the airbags in the seats, and that therefore all seats needed to be replaced, and a 2-4 week delay was expected, I wouldn't have been nearly as anxious.
In the end, Tesla needs this launch to go right more than we need new cars. If these cars arrive with major problems, it will be a PR nightmare. This is Tesla's Halo Car, it must be delivered to show off the quality that Tesla can deliver, not a bunch of lemons.
I think as long as my car does get shipped in the next few days, I will hold on. If it looks like I am going to get pushed to January 2015 anyway, I will consider re-ordering since Feb 2015 is just so close as to say "why not" -- but that decision hasn't been made yet.
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