So Like it has been a month, and how many new Model 3s are out?

[xav-]

I am an IT guy.. I am not a manufacturing guy.. and from my perspective.. having 30 cars hand built and delivered to Elon Musk and Senior VPs for internal testing is not what I call "production".

Don't get me wrong I am excited... but from critical issues found in testing to supply constraint issues there are a ton of potential obstacles on the way.

I find the posts claiming that the model 3 is "on time" highly debatable. I certainly hope it will be but I don't think we have enough evidence so far to draw that conclusion, not even close.

 

[slr_pwrd]

Quote from Tesla site: "Customer deliveries begin in late October". Accordingly, my guess is that 1st group of local California) customers (non-employees) will be invited to configure and place an order in 1st or 2nd week of October...

 

[vigge50]

I am an IT guy.. I am not a manufacturing guy.. and from my perspective.. having 30 cars hand built and delivered to Elon Musk and Senior VPs for internal testing is not what I call "production".

Don't get me wrong I am excited... but from critical issues found in testing to supply constraint issues there are a ton of potential obstacles on the way.

I find the posts claiming that the model 3 is "on time" highly debatable. I certainly hope it will be but I don't think we have enough evidence so far to draw that conclusion, not even close.

How do you know that they are hand built? Tesla started produce test cars earlier in the spring and there was a long thread here with pictures of them. In June they started produce production cars, maybe there is no differens between them but do you have anything to confirm it?

 

[schonelucht]

1. Many people simply aren't very active on social media.
2. Even people who are active on social media may not care for the public attention that would result from posting about the Model 3.

I would totally buy this if it were 3,4 or 5 employees. But 30, especially in a young-employee-tech-infused company like Tesla that are completely absent from social media? Even if I grant you thad, we are already up to 130 now. None one twitter/instagram/snap? It just becomes a numbers game. Next week, if everything is according to schedule, there will be 500 employees with a Model 3 and none of them is active on social media? That's just as likely as winning the powerball.

3. People tend to be very careful about communicating publicly in a manner that could be represented as speaking on behalf of their company. You don't have to sign an NDA or be under a gag order to understand why that could be a poor idea. They could write a blog post or make a video with 99 points on why they love the car, then make 1 point about how the driver's seat squeaks a bit when they sit in it. Next thing you know, some automotive news site posts an article with the headline, "TESLA EMPLOYEE CONFIRMS DISTURBING PROBLEMS WITH INTERIOR FINISH OF MODEL 3", and it gets shared all over the internet. Then they have to explain to management what the hell happened. Why subject yourself to that?

We're not looking for in depth reviews. Just a simple tweet with "Got keys to my new M3", but we haven't even seen that. If the secrecy culture at Tesla is so strict that even that puts an employee in harms way, well then it is as good as if they'd signed an NDA.

 

[gambit48]

We're not looking for in depth reviews. Just a simple tweet with "Got keys to my new M3", but we haven't even seen that. If the secrecy culture at Tesla is so strict that even that puts an employee in harms way, well then it is as good as if they'd signed an NDA.

You've essentially described Apple, which Tesla (among many other companies) likes to emulate.

 

[Neo_fd3s]

It always blows my mind how anxious and impatient some people get over something they have no control over.
Even though it plainly says right on their site deliveries will begin in Oct. We're just about to enter Sept people. There's no need to lose your mind now. Especially if you're 1 of the lucky few who've put an order in early. You've waited this long, what's another few months?

Yes, there are people out there who refuse to participate in this whole "social media" nonsense. Whatever happened to actually having a face to face conversation? Hell, even telephone calls are becoming scarce nowadays.
I too am an I.T. guy, but I refuse to get caught up in this whole social media nonsense. I hear so many people being afraid to hand over information willingly to the government or a place where they buy things regularly, but they have no problem posting a min-by-min account of their daily lives on instagram, twitter and facebook. Some people prefer to keep things to themselves.

I like taking a look at the "caught in the wild" pics thread. That's more than enough to keep me up to date on how things are going with the Model 3.

Can't wait to finally put a deposit down once I figure out what the final numbers will be here for Canada. Hopefully looking at a 2019 delivery.

 

[Lloyd]

It's still the first month, right?

First delivery was July 7th, Elon's car. The next 30 were July 28th.

 

[voip-ninja]

You make a great argument for the UAW

Engineers are management, so nope.

 

[voip-ninja]

That's part of the information that I'm looking for.

Where are you seeing engineers putting in 80+ hours of work. Do you have a link? Do you have a link that shows that their production line is up or down? Or are we speculating?

I'm just inquisitive about that kind of stuff.

AND, again, my question has nothing to do with my car. Who said anything about my car? I'm wondering if Tesla is on course to do what they projected.

I am speculating but it is based on first hand experience in a similar industry as well as the track record of how employees in silicon valley work when they have a direct financial stake in a company in the way of stock grants or discounted options being part of their compensation who are trying to make a deadline.

 

[jhs_7645]

I am an IT guy.. I am not a manufacturing guy.. and from my perspective.. having 30 cars hand built and delivered to Elon Musk and Senior VPs for internal testing is not what I call "production".

Don't get me wrong I am excited... but from critical issues found in testing to supply constraint issues there are a ton of potential obstacles on the way.

I find the posts claiming that the model 3 is "on time" highly debatable. I certainly hope it will be but I don't think we have enough evidence so far to draw that conclusion, not even close.

We don't know the 30 cars were hand built..

But I find your definition of production interesting.

For example.. I don't consider going to the store to buy ingredients for a cake "baking", but that is a necessary step to getting a cake, we should not get caught up in whether or not they are in what people think is 'production', and rest assured that they are going through the necessary steps on the ramp to a production rate that they had promised. What else do people think they are doing? This is not a sinister enterprise whose goal is to build a roadster, build a Model S, a Model X. all as a scam to bilk 500,000 people out of a $1,000 reservation.

If you believe they are actually going to produce your car, then the rest is simply an exercise in patience.. Believe me.. I've been through it (with the Model S).

 

[Garlan Garner]

The closest thing to a personal attack that I can find in this thread, if you can call it that, is someone stating, "I'm almost certain that you have zero background in manufacturing anything as you appear to have no idea of the tooling and set up process needed for automated manufacturing of this kind."

Perhaps some vitriol has been edited out or deleted. Perhaps things seem more harsh from your perspective. I get that, but to me it seems people have generally been respectful in this thread.

You're free to post your own opinions, but that doesn't mean other people have to agree with them.

Thanks for your evaluation.

 

[Barklikeadog]

Engineers are management, so nope.

I never said they were in the union, I am referring to the 80+hr work weeks.

Elon Musk works 100 hour weeks so I guess that is no bigdeal, the workers should stop complaining

 

[voip-ninja]

I never said they were in the union, I am referring to the 80+hr work weeks.

Elon Musk works 100 hour weeks so I guess that is no bigdeal, the workers should stop complaining

Now you are extrapolating and putting words in my mouth.

I said that engineers were likely working 80 hour weeks at Tesla right now trying to handle production ramp. You then commented that this is a good argument for the united auto workers union. I then replied that engineers are managers and aren't covered by union rules and then you go off on another tangent about how many hours Elon Musk works.

The line workers are getting paid overtime and are protected by state and federal law about how many hours they can put in during a day, how many breaks they (by law) get, protection from unsafe working conditions, etc.... they are also getting stock awards so they have a direct financial incentive in trying to make the company successful. Having been in one, I'm not at all a fan of unions which in my experience do nothing but suck productivity out of a business.

The engineers & programmers are salaried employees who also have a big stake in the success of the company. They are probably almost all six figure salaried workers who could become millionaires in less than a decade if Tesla does extremely well with this launch. Nobody is going to force them to work 80 hours a week but there's a lot of peer pressure to put enormous hours in on a project like this coupled with the desire to have the big success on your resume.

 

[Shygar]

I just think it's amazing that aluminum, steel and other raw materials go in one side and out comes a pretty cool EV on the other . I'm patiently waiting and hoping for a Nov release.

 

[206er]

I agree - we need numbers yesterday!

 

[voip-ninja]

I just think it's amazing that aluminum, steel and other raw materials go in one side and out comes a pretty cool EV on the other . I'm patiently waiting and hoping for a Nov release.

You forgot about the massive semi haulers showing up at the factory daily with the parts from all of Tesla's suppliers in the area east of California without which construction of the Model 3 would not be feasible.

 

[daniel]

Tesla builds amazing cars. They don't have a great record for meeting timelines. I'm okay with this because I'd rather have to wait some extra time while they work out the bugs than meet an arbitrary timeline goal and have bugs in the car. I'm as impatient as the next guy, but the reality is that Tesla is going to take the time to get it right. IIRC, my estimated delivery is the first quarter of 2018 if I take the RWD. I fully expect it to be the second quarter due to as-yet unforeseen delays. It will do me no good to get upset about delays, so I'm just setting my expectation low on delivery date. My expectation on the amazingness of this car is very high.

 

[Economite]

Unless we hear from Elon sooner we will know when Tesla reports Q3 deliveries in early October. We know they built 50 production cars in July and delivered 30 so delivering 100 in August should be a slam dunk. Until early October just enjoy the sightings and continue speculation.

Really... We know nothing. This is the "brilliance" of Elon's "release-first-to-employees-with-NDAs" strategy. We have no idea how many cars are actually being produced, whether they are more "hand-made" or "production", or whether they actually work well. Could be that Tesla is making huge numbers of production cars that work brilliantly. Could be that they haven't made anything since the vehicles that we delivered last month (which may have been more like test/hand-built vehicles). Either way, we'd hear nothing, so the fact that we've heard nothing isn't meaningful (though I bet if things were going well, Elon would be crowing about it in tweets with specific numbers).

 

[Economite]

Really... We know nothing. This is the "brilliance" of Elon's "release-first-to-employees-with-NDAs" strategy. We have no idea how many cars are actually being produced, whether they are more "hand-made" or "production", or whether they actually work well. Could be that Tesla is making huge numbers of production cars that work brilliantly. Could be that they haven't made anything since the vehicles that we delivered last month (which may have been more like test/hand-built vehicles). Either way, we'd hear nothing, so the fact that we've heard nothing isn't meaningful (though I bet if things were going well, Elon would be crowing about it in tweets with specific numbers).

Side note: The employees may not be under NDA's (though I bet they are), but they have to know that it would be career suicide to post anything negative (or possibly to post anything at all) on a public website.

 

[aronth5]

In the big picture this is not important at all but just to point out that Tesla made 50 production cars not 30 in July. Elon stated this at the end of the hand off event. The extra 20 were for "engineering validation".