Production capacity improvement for Model S and Model X.

[SBenson]

This is somewhat old news but I didn't see it mentioned here. So posting it now.

"We believe that Tesla’s investment spending may have yielded more production capacity than we had previously assumed. Tesla’s second body assembly line, which will initially produce only Model Xs, has roughly 540 robots (vs. 140 robots on the Model S line), and we were told that at some point in 2016 it will achieve approximately 2x the production capacity of the first body line, which continues to produce 1200 Model S’s per week. Consequently, we believe that Tesla’s body shop already has production capacity of ~3600 units per week. While we do not expect Tesla to reach the implied capacity of 180,000 units per year any time soon (we project 84,000 and 113,000 for 2016 and 2017, respectively), we nonetheless view this as a positive data point, as it appears that Tesla has completed quite a bit more production capacity heavy lifting than is widely assumed."

This is from a Deutsche Bank note published on SI on Dec 8th. Here is the link.

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A related question, is body-shop same as general-assembly?

 

[dakh]

This is somewhat old news but I didn't see it mentioned here. So posting it now.

"We believe that Tesla’s investment spending may have yielded more production capacity than we had previously assumed. Tesla’s second body assembly line, which will initially produce only Model Xs, has roughly 540 robots (vs. 140 robots on the Model S line), and we were told that at some point in 2016 it will achieve approximately 2x the production capacity of the first body line, which continues to produce 1200 Model S’s per week. Consequently, we believe that Tesla’s body shop already has production capacity of ~3600 units per week. While we do not expect Tesla to reach the implied capacity of 180,000 units per year any time soon (we project 84,000 and 113,000 for 2016 and 2017, respectively), we nonetheless view this as a positive data point, as it appears that Tesla has completed quite a bit more production capacity heavy lifting than is widely assumed."

This is from a Deutsche Bank note published on SI on Dec 8th. Here is the link.

- - - Updated - - -

A related question, is body-shop same as general-assembly?

We discussed this before: this article doesn't take into account that they were going to shut down the old production line to make space for Model 3 line. It's possible they'll run both lines for some time to catch up with backup but that's quite speculative.

 

[dc_h]

Does anyone know if they are still producing on line one, or have they consolidated on line 2? I'm hoping they move line one and the original paint system to Tilberg to mitigate the strong dollar.

 

[lango]

Does anyone know if they are still producing on line one, or have they consolidated on line 2? I'm hoping they move line one and the original paint system to Tilberg to mitigate the strong dollar.

Model S is currently still on the old body line. Assembly is shared between S and X. The paint shop they have built in Fremont is good for 500 000 vehicles so I don't think they will have any painting in Europe. I think they are more likely to open the next factory in China (maybe with a partner) to lower the customs.

Not much new on the call. It seems they are becoming more secretive about internal operations and plans, and prefer to just give a guidance. Probably a good idea. They did mention production improvements as part of the CAPEX for 2016. It seems like they will be limited in capacity for S and X already in second half of 2016. I am going to assume they will solve that. if they keep the old body line of S it is the assembly that will be the bottleneck and that can perhaps be solved with an extra shift as we discussed before.

Looks like we have to use factory tours or other secondary information for production improvements. Great call anyhow.