"California" is an acceptable answer for any reason a manufacturer moves out of state or overseas.
As was already stated here, CA has one of the largest manufacturing sectors in the US. Companies move around the country for lots of reasons, not least of which can be tax incentives and cheaper labor. Nothing you've said actually carries any weight, and you've provided zero evidence that CA anti-pollution laws are causing paint defects.
my answer makes more sense than any one else’s as I provided evidence on California being unfriendly at everything business.
You haven't provided evidence. You've provided your anti-california opinion.
Considering the cost and complexity of paint is less than military grade battery packs -
Why are there not a dozen paint facilities?
First, Tesla doesn't make the batteries. Second, it turns out that different processes can have different types and levels of complexity. I wouldn't have imagined that I'd have to explain that to an adult, but here we are. You can brush your teeth, why can't you write software?
I’m a economist so a scientist of resources and production. Not one of those fake Nobel theorists but one that solves everyday problems.
There is one other element and that is the fault of the government. EV tax subsidies which phase out and change consumer spending behavior.
As an economist, I would have imagined that you would understand the value of incentivizing positive consumer behaviors and rewarding companies for keeping manufacturing and design within a nation and a state. I'm guessing some of your clearly conservative, anti-california, anti-government, probably internet libertarianism is bleeding into this conversation.
Tesla has a timeline to maximize the subsidies for as many customers as possible. So the customers have fault by demanding a bigger rebate subsidy over quality. They push Tesla to make cars and here we are.
That isn't the crux of the rush. The rush is that over 500,000 people world wide (so US incentives have zero impact for more than half of them) put down reservations. They need to produce cars before competition shows up or consumers lose interest,
and then need to become profitable ASAP to steady their share price. Again, I'm surprised to be explaining supply and demand and global markets to an economist, but here we are.
Accuracy first - speed and efficiently follows.
Speed first, quality/accuracy, effeciency suffers.
Classic production ramp dichotomy.
Speeding up without scaling out or scaling up is asking for the problems we are seeing.
The problems we are seeing, most of which have been solved already, have been down to Tesla trying to reinvent manufacturing. Elon and other Tesla representatives have admitted as much. They've removed some of the more foolish attempts to automate, simplified line areas, and behold production has sped up and become more predictable.
Obviously there is some tongue in cheek and of course California is going to manufacture SOMETHING because it’s the 5th largest GDP in the world. 50 million people.
Compare absolute advantage and comparative advantage. California is a poor place to do it in absolute terms.
And yet, Tesla is there propping up an industry in a place that had been abandoned by other manufacturers for lower labor and land costs so they could expand the physical footprint of their facilities. Which Tesla did in Sparks.
I was born in California and I have never left California on a permanent basis.
Just telling it how it is. (With a little bit of exaggeration and saltiness at California’s anti business climate)
Let me promise you, California isn't as bad as talk radio has you believe.
As an automation engineer, that is straight up beauty in motion.
Agreed. I used to want to work on manufacturing automation systems. I think they're super fascinating to watch!
As for Tesla, I just don't think they have the time to make another paint line. Some of the edge paint issue cases are the worst I've seen in a car per $ of paint. Their QC has got to be shorter imo than their competitors per car exiting the factory
Adding another line might actually not be physically possible based on space requirements. So it could be a pointless argument anyway. But, building a paint shop versus trying to speed up a paint system already running at its maximum speed, building the space is going to be faster.
As for the QC processes, I don't know what Tesla does, but they need to do
much better in every category. I presume they're attempting to rely on some AI computer vision system, but it
sucks if they are. And the presumably human training system is not providing proper feedback fast enough to train the neural network to the level they need.
A.) Pushing the cars out without perfection with the hopes that some people will take the car or not notice/care, thus hitting delivery goals for Q3.
There is no manufacturer putting out perfect cars. And paradoxically, the more expensive the car brand the less likely it won't have major flaws. So, for something like a Ferrari or a Lambo, expect several major flaws. For something like a Honda, expect several small ones. Tesla is in between hand-build boutique brand and mass production, so hopefully the trend moves down and to the right.
B.) Pushing the cars out without perfection with the hopes that some people will notice and still take delivery since they are fans, want their car already and will deal with it at the SC, and still hitting delivery goals for Q3.
There may be several issues that are just easier to rework at a SC rather than the factory, too. But also consider, several owners are reading forums like this, seeing things get blown out of proportion, and then blowing their own miniscule issues out of proportion. I've seen complaining of panel gaps with a variance of between one and four
millimeters. There are a lot of people that have never ever looked at this kind of thing, and now that they're being told to they see something that doesn't exist.
C.) Pushing out some cars without any paint issues.
It would seem that the vast majority of vehicles are delivered without paint issues, since most cars aren't being repainted.
