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Red multi coat is now $2,500 - I would love to be a fly on the wall in their meetings!
- Thread starter MXWing
- Start date
Minor correction, Tesla got rid of metallic silver (light silver), not midnight silver metallic.
I see that response a lot. It's only x% more. They also said that when it doubled to $2000. You can say that forever and it's super easy to spin percentages into your favor. Like for example, in 3 months, the color red has increased in price by 250%. Doc fees has increased by 20%. AWD cost has increased by 50%. On the base model, getting red paint costs 7.1% additional on the 35k car. Those numbers definitely make it worse than 1% of what you were going to pay anyways. Convince yourself that Tesla red paint is equivalent to Lamborghini's on a Hurracan.
As for "give Tesla 100 years" holds no weight either. Elon admitted that they were naive about manufacturing, thought they were going to be better than Toyota Kaizen/Ford, only to rip out $500 million of automation equipment and build GA4 outside. And when asked why he didn't ask for help, Elon just assumed they wouldn't help with the war of words going back and forth between legacy automakers and Tesla. They didn't have to manufacture the way they did, they chose to do so and now are scrambling. They can build the best power train, but can't paint cars properly due to their manufacturing line processes.
I just hope that this ridiculousness dies down for the people still waiting.
As for "give Tesla 100 years" holds no weight either. Elon admitted that they were naive about manufacturing, thought they were going to be better than Toyota Kaizen/Ford, only to rip out $500 million of automation equipment and build GA4 outside. And when asked why he didn't ask for help, Elon just assumed they wouldn't help with the war of words going back and forth between legacy automakers and Tesla. They didn't have to manufacture the way they did, they chose to do so and now are scrambling. They can build the best power train, but can't paint cars properly due to their manufacturing line processes.
I just hope that this ridiculousness dies down for the people still waiting.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Curiously (and I'd even say surprisingly) I don't recall seeing one in Houston, and there was 13 Model 3 registered. I could have missed there being one there, since there were a lot of cars, but there were at least a lot that weren't.
I definitely have seen them though, and since mid-summer it was easily the most popular colour by the numbers coming in from the online run surveys.
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Promo714
Member
I live in Orange County, CA and spend a lot of time in LA. I have a red 3 and I whereas I notice 3s all the the time driving around, I have only ever seen one other red 3. It is a pretty great color in person (and with paint correction and ceramic coating 
) and for me the cost is not really material since it's my choice and there are other options. I would only be pissed if they said, "you can only get it in one color and that's going to cost you an extra $2,500."
) and for me the cost is not really material since it's my choice and there are other options. I would only be pissed if they said, "you can only get it in one color and that's going to cost you an extra $2,500."
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Thing is that if they didn't "manufacture the way they did", if they'd done it by the traditional automobile manufacturer's method and were 'on schedule' right now they'd wouldn't have shipped a single car yet, and thus very would be circling the Chapter 11 (or 7) toilet bowl.
You don't break into an established industry by running the established industry's playbook. Especially when that playbook is heavily tuned over decades to tech that you aren't using. The sure death of "playing it safe" when you're coming in on a situation like this.
See that's the thing. I am not suggesting it be one or the other. Tesla manufacturing has outright ignored some key concepts of manufacturing that other companies have figured out. They are figuring things out that they shouldn't have to because they could have easily looked and said, "yep, too costly, too slow." For example, it took Elon years to admit that certain functions humans can complete much faster than a machine right now. Wiring the model 3 electronics. Engineers spent months trying to figure out how to get a bolt lined up and fed in automatically, only to realize the bolt just needed a taper.
I fully believe that Tesla would be having far more success manufacturing if they incorporated some TPS style lean manufacturing into their own. Good discussion, thanks.
Is this a make up a fact Sunday?
While you are making up your own facts, why can't you make it more exciting like , $3.23B or something like that.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
If you dig by some flowery words and whatever was public, underneath they always planned on retaining a large human component. What Tesla's targets on what they refer to as "general assembly" portion (most of the stuff stuff after core body structure and paint) was always only about 15% vs current industry's top-end on that of about %5. I understand Musk talks a big game on manufacturing automation, and where it matters it really matters (battery pack appears to be key, they are marching that cost down, and that hasn't been the chokepoint for months now, every since they brought control of the manufacturing design line back in-house) but that's really a smaller part and it's even the root of what you're talking about.
The two core innovations by Tesla (besides obviously commitment to BEV) has been the vehicle design itself (cell connected central computer system, very high control of the vehicle functions, allowing software driven design) and where the engineering happens in the product lifecycle (allowed because of simplified hardware and the design being heavily software driven, and highly iterative product evolution where they ship early and improve design on a nearly weekly basis).
The later is where the core of the "scrambling" is coming from, and if they weren't doing that, and hadn't been so successful at it, they'd still be a year off from shipping. It's the revolution that shook and reshaped software 20 years ago and this is what it looks like, "scrambling" as you put it. Compared to what came before it, even when executed with upmost competency it looks like it could at any moment fly off the metaphorical track into a fiery crash, it looks sloppy and wasteful and in some ways that's real in certain ways, but the net result because of the speed is actually meaningful improvement.
If it this had all be executed poorly by Tesla it would have been a fiery crash, which hopefully you can discern that it hasn't been?
The tough part about "well if they included X from traditional auto manufacting" is that so many variables change here that it's hard to grasp what's going to fit and what would be a total disaster because it doesn't fit. What you mention is an overarching philosophy that permeates beginning to end and is, again, tuned for a different kind of vehicle. Fortunately the process itself is inherently about adapting and incorporating stuff. So as things settle out parts of that that compatible are probably going to be included. But it isn't as simple as copy-paste together, apply a jolt, and your monster comes alive functioning in a fine tuned manner.
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Just did factory tour on Friday. I’d say a third of the cars we saw on the line were red. It was very obvious they had just done runs of red, white, and black cars (we only saw a small handful of the other colors), but the red stood out for sure. Love my red 3!
Because Elon only said that the other GA line cost "Hundreds of millions of dollars" and $500 million is a flat round number in the middle of "Hundreds of Millions." Check out Bloomberg's interview of Elon and his view of his previously overly automated line. Even he believes they were naive and dumb. And while vision PNP machines are expensive, they aren't in the billions. But you're right, if you take Elon at face value, he did say GA4 was built with scraps in the warehouse and was much better than the hundreds of millions GA line. So my assessment of "ripping out $500 million of automation equipment" was too excessive. Good call-out.
If you dig by some flowery words and whatever was public, underneath they always planned on retaining a large human component. What Tesla's targets on what they refer to as "general assembly" portion (most of the stuff stuff after core body structure and paint) was always only about 15% vs current industry's top-end on that of about %5. I understand Musk talks a big game on manufacturing automation, and where it matters it really matters (battery pack appears to be key, they are marching that cost down, and that hasn't been the chokepoint for months now, every since they brought control of the manufacturing design line back in-house) but that's really a smaller part and it's even the root of what you're talking about.
If it this had all be executed poorly by Tesla it would have been a fiery crash, which hopefully you can discern that it hasn't been?
The tough part about "well if they included X from traditional auto manufacting" is that so many variables change here that it's hard to grasp what's going to fit and what would be a total disaster because it doesn't fit. What you mention is an overarching philosophy that permeates beginning to end and is, again, tuned for a different kind of vehicle. Fortunately the process itself is inherently about adapting and incorporating stuff. So as things settle out parts of that that compatible are probably going to be included. But it isn't as simple as copy-paste together, apply a jolt, and your monster comes alive functioning in a fine tuned manner.
Why do you feel that they were planning on retaining a large human component? From what I can get from Musk, he wants to move towards his alien dreadnought, full automation, no people at all?
I agree with your assessment, but this paint issue, is rocking a very shaky boat. The last bold is what I want to focus on, I agree its adaptable, I wish I saw that being included over the past few years with model S and X and unfortunately, in my eyes, I haven't seen implemented enough until, "Oh ****, yeah we were dumb."
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Info is relayed Tesla statements that have come out of investor tours of the plant. The one I give on general assembly is an explicit target number they've given.
BTW the huge system they pulled out of the main building GA wasn't direct assembly equipment, it was just parts inventory movement system. Ultimately they couldn't get it to work, in no small part, because they're kinda cramped in the building. Unlike the tent, the lines have to turn in a U-shape, and their line is very much a 3-D deal to fit everything in. Also, that delivery system was a known high risk, at least once Musk talked about how complex the software for it was and how they weren't sure it was going to work.
Listen more carefully.
That's the flowery, aspirational stuff you're misreading. I'm not sure he's made detailed public statements about percentages and such. I'm not sure he's ever sat for a really good technical detail interview on this stuff? It mostly seems PR fluff grade stuff. Which is a little disappointing because I have no doubt he's got those numbers and more rolling around his head ready to spit out, but he's got cars to sell and the interviews for general public consumption are Tesla's version of advertising.It's important to understand that automation takes time to dial in the details. Tesla is doing this live. They're doing it faster, much faster, than auto makers have.
"Ship early, iterate."
Also, paint defects coming off factory lines and after shipping is hardly uncommon thing. Two things with Tesla that are different are the electron microscope this is under (for various reasons) and the much slower pace of logistics with dealerships doing repairs that they don't mention to you.
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Lots have said that Tesla is superior to other manufacturers in that it doesn't specifically designate Model Years for their vehicles, allowing for on the fly improvements to be made to vehicles without waiting for a MY changeover.
As we see in this thread, that also means on the fly price changes in favor of the company.
Barklikeadog
Active Member
Barklikeadog
Active Member
Barklikeadog
Active Member
But this isn't a premium luxury car. This is the $35,000 car for the masses. The masses buy cars with the paint included.
If Ford could get $2500 more they would. Currently they are loosing money and cutting back their number of products.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
Not true, the only early adopters who have their cars are the "I'll take any car you want to sell me even if it's not what I really want" crowd.
Anyone who wants dual motor, short range, etc., is still waiting.
Based on the fact that only about 50% or so of first month dual motor reservationists either have their cars or have a scheduled delivery date it appears that Tesla are still working their asses off just to satisfy demand of the wave 2 early adopters (dual motor).
Tysto
Member
My brother-in-law, who manages an RV custom painting business, touched up my red Model S after a ding. He mentioned it was known (among painters) to be tricky, but he didn't have much trouble with it. Perfect match.
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