Losing faith in Tesla this week

[vandacca]

Wouldn't it be cool if you could truly track the production via the App? Tesla needs to understand that people are very understanding when there are problems/delays with high tech things - but keep the customer in the loop.

While "keeping the customer in the loop" sounds like a good idea initially, I don't think it's the right thing to do. Imagine if you knew that while your car was in production, your vehicle was pulled off the line for 3 weeks due to the passenger-side Falcon Wing Door (FWD). After delivery, many consumers would question whether they have a repaired FWD or if it got replaced with a new one. If it got repaired, would it develop issues in the future? Even if it got replaced, they would question whether it's as good as vehicle that was built "flawlessly" from the start. And whenever something goes awry with that door, you'll always question it since you know that there was an issue during manufacturing.

I think it's best that Tesla builds these vehicles in secret and does whatever it has to do to get it right. As far as the consumer should know is that they got a perfect car without knowing how it got there. Besides, I'm sure Tesla engineers are much smarter than the rest of us and they don't need arm-chair quarterbacks telling them how to do their jobs.

I think that once these initial problems are sorted out, "keeping customers in the loop" won't be necessary as the line starts humming along at a predictable pace.

 

[onethumb]

I don't need that level of detail... I'm talking about basic "Oh, we're having a parts shortage." updates on a regular basis. My order has gone for weeks and months without updates, including just zero replies to my emails.

They should be proactively updating me on delays and timelines. I don't think that's too much to ask for super-loyal Tesla fanatics ordering $150K cars.

 

[vandacca]

Agreed @onethumb. However, there may be SEC restrictions. That information can also be used by investors to gain an unfair advantage. I don't think it's a simple request.

 

[Dr ValueSeeker]

Agreed @onethumb. However, there may be SEC restrictions. That information can also be used by investors to gain an unfair advantage. I don't think it's a simple request.

Very much doubt this explanation. The parts shortage excuse is already mentioned in the Q1 delivery note. There are all sorts of information being leaked byTesla all the time, when they are good news. Telling one customer the reason for delay won't be the last straw. You can see bits and pieces of arguably meaningful information all through this forum. More likely, the news is bad or the DS has no clue what Tesla HQ has up its sleeves.

 

[vandacca]

Ok, I may be paranoid, but it's my belief that Tesla purposely assigns non-sequential VINs to prevent groups like TMC from figuring out exactly how many cars are being built and looking too deeply into their production stats.

If they are purposely trying to make it more difficult for people (investors?) to figure this out, I highly doubt they'll give out more detailed information to customers who can quite easily input that info into ModelXTracker.com to form a pretty clear picture of production stats.

 

[nienco2]

but it's my belief that Tesla purposely assigns non-sequential VINs to prevent groups like TMC from figuring out exactly how many cars are being built.

With all due respect this seems far fetched, even ludicrous, @onethumb has a reservation under 100! TM should just get him a fresh car this week, before another person who didn't even need to make a reservation gets a car. TM is a car manufacturer, it should not be some kind of secret how many they are building. In fact they said quite publicly they are building 750 a week.

 

[Drivin]

Looks like Elon will take care of this:

Second layer QA
Now that's funny.
Do the first layer QA people get to go home earlier since the second layer QA people will catch it?

Time for "RFT" - defect prevention more better than defect detection which is better than defect detection after the first group missed the defects.