Blog Musk Says Tesla May Prefer Its Tented Assembly Line

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the massive tent set up to house a Model 3 manufacturing line at the Fremont, Calif. factory was necessary to reach the company’s 5,000 cars per week goal by the end of the quarter.

Musk previously shared a photo inside the tented assembly line showing the first performance version of the Model 3.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1008081295090450432

Answering questions on Twitter, Musk said the company did not have time to construct an actual building, but the tent went up in about two weeks.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1008906087611883521

https://twitter.com/x/status/1008919193259945986

Musk said the company may actually favor the tent to a building. “More comfortable & a great view of the mountains,” he tweeted.

Musk said the whole assembly line was built using scrap Tesla had in warehouses. “And it’s way better than the other GA line that cost hundreds of millions!” he tweeted.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1008913670707953664

Musk also also said that the Tesla Grohmann line is now running at Gigafactory 1.

 

[AccelAdvent]

In case folks missed this great GA4 insight from @Sparky: General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

Sounds like the tent may also afford more rapid/effective experimentation and iteration. Perhaps it’s a model for line R&D....

 

[ℬête Noire]

In case folks missed this great GA4 insight from @Sparky: General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

Sounds like the tent may also afford more rapid/effective experimentation and iteration. Perhaps it’s a model for line R&D....

Cool post, thinks for the link.

As per my post just prior, that's why it makes total sense that the first vehicle off the line has a white interior. P is just an implication of that as Tesla has so far only allowed white interior to be configured on the P. This is the "figure out new caca" line.

 

[Killroy]

To add to what mongo said, yes.

As I posted at Tesla struggles to make 500K M3s while Ford makes 900K of just the "F" truck

Of the above plant tours, I can't think of a single automaker that didn't remove the doors. They were reattached much later, after they were mostly or completely done installing the interior bits (e.g. wiring harnesses, carpet, seats, dash, consoles,etc.) This is common practice. As explained to us, the doors simply got in the way of that work. Also, leaving them attached for longer than necessary after painting means increased risk of damage.

100% sure Toyota and Nissan removed their doors and re-attached later.

You can see at the videos there and at REPORT: Oppama Style, that the doors are off for most of the time after painting. They seem to skip over showing door reattachment. I don't like the music at

, but you can see the rail system for the doors. I've seen this at all or virtually all the plant tours I've been on. At ~2:00, you can see final assembly and why the doors would be in the way.

I stumbled across

which I need to watch completely but at ~17:41 they discuss kaizen and why they remove the doors.

I posted about the door removal and all at How 2010 Prius is made in Tsutsimi plant - Videos in 2009. Unfortunately, all the accompanying YouTube videos in that thread are dead.

I've also seen plenty of documentaries on various car factories/how a particular vehicle is assembled.

After rethinking removing the doors makes sense because they need to fit check the doors before they paint. Perhaps the paint matches better too. Perhaps the step could be removed with modern 3D scanning or other technical solutions, or they could simply remove the doors.

 

[mongo]

The drivetrain is in place well before the GA section, it's one of the first things done.

Gonna disagree with you there. For Tesla and ICE OEMs, power train comes in late in assembly, need access for brake hard lines, harness, frunk accessories.
From the video or GA4 off twitter, the chassis is coming to the line painted without drive train. Early Tesla videos of the robot line also showed seat/ IP installation without drive train.

Additionally, these images show assembly without drive train:

https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/img/L6...307-a867b906ffaf/tesla-factory-tour-hd-12.jpg
https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cn...ettyImages-534236188.600x400.jpg?v=1495117985

 

[Phillyasian]

Gonna disagree with you there. For Tesla and ICE OEMs, power train comes in late in assembly, need access for brake hard lines, harness, frunk accessories.
From the video or GA4 off twitter, the chassis is coming to the line painted without drive train. Early Tesla videos of the robot line also showed seat/ IP installation without drive train.

Additionally, these images show assembly without drive train:

https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/img/L6...307-a867b906ffaf/tesla-factory-tour-hd-12.jpg
https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cn...ettyImages-534236188.600x400.jpg?v=1495117985

Take a tour of the Fremont Factory. I did so a couple of weeks ago and it was such an eye opening experience to see how my car was being made!

 

[mongo]

Take a tour of the Fremont Factory. I did so a couple of weeks ago and it was such an eye opening experience to see how my car was being made!

Would love to, but first they need to make the pickup (hyperloop to avoid air travel would be nice too)

I was formerly a Tier 1 supplier, so I've been in my share of plants, but Tesla's would be worth seeing.

 

[systemBuilder]

1. I imagine that to add a dual-motor assembly step they would have to lengthen the assembly line somewhere in the middle to add the 2nd motor. This is such a time-consuming operation (moving all the factory machinery to lengthen a line) and would take down the assembly line for such a long time, that they might as well build a 3rd assembly line instead.

2. I recall that Tesla had an automated parts delivery system of conveyers which ended up taking so much space and made it difficult to get into the assembly area, therefore, Tesla scrapped it. This system of conveyers could probably be used as the basis for the 3rd tent-based assembly line. This is what Musk is probably talking about when he said that a 3rd line was made from spare parts (and some spare robots) they had laying around the factory.

 

[mongo]

1. I imagine that to add a dual-motor assembly step they would have to lengthen the assembly line somewhere in the middle to add the 2nd motor. This is such a time-consuming operation (moving all the factory machinery to lengthen a line) and would take down the assembly line for such a long time, that they might as well build a 3rd assembly line instead.

2. I recall that Tesla had an automated parts delivery system of conveyers which ended up taking so much space and made it difficult to get into the assembly area, therefore, Tesla scrapped it. This system of conveyers could probably be used as the basis for the 3rd tent-based assembly line. This is what Musk is probably talking about when he said that a 3rd line was made from spare parts (and some spare robots) they had laying around the factory.

1) From the pics I've seen, the entire drivertrain/suspension comes in on it's own cart and then is attached to the frame. Dual motor would add a little alignment and 3-4 bolts to that step. Down the line, the power, comms, and cooling lines need attached to the front as well as rear motor, but that could be handled by an additional person.

I'd expect, since the car was planned to be AWD, if dual required extra stations, the original line would have had that requirement in place and bypassed it for RWD.
Where there would be an issue is if automation couldn't do the task, so they added space for manual operations.

2) Totes agree! (Plus what engineering house doesn't have piles of 80/20 lying around...)