dennis
Model S Plaid
Most of the short repetitive tasks that are currently done by humans on the final assembly line. As a simple example, attaching the underbody tray pieces. This is only cost effective if the robots can do the tasks faster than than the humans thereby increasing throughput. In this example, that would mean screwing in the 10-20 fasteners all at once rather than one at a time.I'm interested to see what these "special robots" will do that everyone keeps talking about. There could be some advancement but it does sound a lot more like talk than substantive actuality.
It looks like you are forecasting a drop in demand for S+X in 2017 since Tesla's current demand based on Q3 results and Q4 forecast is 100K per year. But at least it is an increase from the 62K you forecast for this year.And there is a moderate chance that 2017 (based on your numbers) is still not going to beat 90,000 a year S+X+3 if they slow-build the first round of Model 3.