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The term I've heard for running cargo haulers empty is "dead heading". The rail terminal in Richmond is where most cars from Europe and other parts of North America are delivered to Northern California. Some cars from Asia probably come in by rail too. Los Angeles is the biggest port of entry for cars in the US, or was last time I checked. Though most cars from Asia destined for Northern California probably are offloaded somewhere in the Bay Area.
I know most cars from Asia to the Northwest are shipped to Portland or Seattle. My SO had a special order on her 2013 Impreza and they kept her updated on the build and shipping. It was shipped from Japan to Portland, OR.
I'm sure Tesla is probably getting a discount from the railroad for taking up some cargo space on those railcars that would otherwise be running empty. Even though it's a hassle to load up the cars for a short haul from the factory to Richmond, it may still be cheaper than having car trains come to the factory. Back when the factory was GM and joint GM/Toyota those companies probably had enough pull with the railroads to get the best rates possible for loading at a private rail spur, but Tesla doesn't have that kind of clout with the railroads. Their total production is a tiny fraction of GM's.
Ulmo
Active Member
Topical post. I’m sure this has been spotted before, but it’s new to me, so you get today’s current pics.
Across from Warm Springs BART terminal parking lot.
I count around 400 parking spots, which I estimate are currently above 95% utilized by new Tesla cars, mostly Model 3.
In other news, the South Fremont Blvd lot hasn’t changed since I spotted it last. I saw one new Model 3 manually driven from that lot to the Fremont Delivery Center (FDC) to be prepped for sale. I saw no other activity. That entire lot could be a feeder for the Fremont Delivery Center and end up being emptied within a month at a rate of only one car delivered per 15 minutes in 30 8 hour shifts. When I drove by FDC, it had about 4 cars being delivered at that moment to new customers, and at a rate of 1 hour per customer, that’s right to eat that South lot in a month. It’s possible they did that to avoid hitting 200K last quarter.
The south of Fisher lot by the factory was nearly empty and only had two carriers being loaded. That bunch of empty carriers yesterday could have been given something to do.
By the way, the view into the assembly line tent from the opposte of output end is a bunch of boxes. Those could be the feed for unmechanized processes on a mechanized line, i.e., “mouse nuts” of process portion. They look no different today from the obtrusive drone footage posted by shorts last week. The FUDsters were just kicking up dust on that one.
I can’t stress how obtrusive the high density low income housing development done by the city is on expansion for the factory. The factory could have tripled its output given the available land before that stupid project broke ground that took land adjacent the factory. Now, it’s nearly guaranteed Tesla will expand and eventually relocate their auto manufacturing out of California, thanks to that city move.
Across from Warm Springs BART terminal parking lot.
I count around 400 parking spots, which I estimate are currently above 95% utilized by new Tesla cars, mostly Model 3.
In other news, the South Fremont Blvd lot hasn’t changed since I spotted it last. I saw one new Model 3 manually driven from that lot to the Fremont Delivery Center (FDC) to be prepped for sale. I saw no other activity. That entire lot could be a feeder for the Fremont Delivery Center and end up being emptied within a month at a rate of only one car delivered per 15 minutes in 30 8 hour shifts. When I drove by FDC, it had about 4 cars being delivered at that moment to new customers, and at a rate of 1 hour per customer, that’s right to eat that South lot in a month. It’s possible they did that to avoid hitting 200K last quarter.
The south of Fisher lot by the factory was nearly empty and only had two carriers being loaded. That bunch of empty carriers yesterday could have been given something to do.
By the way, the view into the assembly line tent from the opposte of output end is a bunch of boxes. Those could be the feed for unmechanized processes on a mechanized line, i.e., “mouse nuts” of process portion. They look no different today from the obtrusive drone footage posted by shorts last week. The FUDsters were just kicking up dust on that one.
I can’t stress how obtrusive the high density low income housing development done by the city is on expansion for the factory. The factory could have tripled its output given the available land before that stupid project broke ground that took land adjacent the factory. Now, it’s nearly guaranteed Tesla will expand and eventually relocate their auto manufacturing out of California, thanks to that city move.
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Reddy Kilowatt
Active Member
I was going to post the same thing but you beat me to it.
now can someone count how many times a lane fills and empties in a day.
counted 6 nights and thus 7 days.. And the "first' lane/most close to the camera lane", seems to get emptied 35 times. So around 5 times a day emptied, maybe 6 times a day emptied. 6 times a day, would be every 4 hours emptied.
They sure did. There were 15 trucks loading in Friday 6th around 8.
I really have appreciated the pictures and intel gleaned from this lot, but there's still a few things that don't make sense to me. There was a report issued (I don't recall by whom) during the last week of June that indicated that most of the Model 3's were being transported inside closed 53' containers. Why are they strictly using car haulers out of this lot?
I know which report you are talking about. And I have no idea what that report was talking about...
Most of the cars leave on open haulers.
(Unless there is a secret staging ground they use covered trailers for to hide the secrets, and the author's just happened to find out...)
RedOctober
Member
Elon has bored a tunnel to an undisclosed location to keep prying eyes at bay.
7/9/18 around 7:30am - the lot seems a bit empty, source confirmed that their production rate hasn’t gotten back to the June levels. 7 car carriers loading and one more entering the lot. Sorry for the delay (one day ago) seems like safari isn’t working for this site.
Reddy Kilowatt
Active Member
Yes that does seem empty for sure. Hope there isn't a part supplier issue. Maybe the truckers have caught up and got all the trucks they need.
Around 9am today there were 10 car carriers in the lot. Around 4pm this afternoon there were 16 car carriers in the lot. That is the most carriers I have seen ever there. Even during the last week of June, the most I have seen are 12 car carriers. Maybe the productions have not decreased at all.
There were about 10 carriers last night at 10:30pm. Production is holding up.
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