You guys are
way to pessimistic on Gen 3! It's clear that Tesla installed an extra stamping press months ago. They don't need a new paint shop (no paint!). And Walter Isaacson told us that Elon was spenting hrs each week this past Summer '
shaving milliseconds' off of each step in a highly-automated assembly line. You don't do that in a CAD model, you do it on the factory floor. The Gen3 line already exists!
Again, I expect that Tesla will debut Robotaxi at the Superbowl in Vegas on Feb 11, 2024 and they'll have a fleet of (oh, WAG) maybe 500 robotaxis running v12 FSD just shuttling game goers between the airport, the strip/hotels, and the stadium. PRICELE$$
I'd be equally impressed (but not surprised) if The Boring Company announce a contract to buy 100K robotaxi's or some such. Or even, if Tesla bought TBC.
Cheers to the Wild Ones!
Brian doesn't think Gen3 is happening at Austin, but I think Brian is wrong.
For starters Gen3 achieves a > 40% reduction in factory footprint.
Why is the Mexico factory so big?
IMO that is because there are multiple lines.
If we consider the Gen3 process to be multiple parallel lines feeding a final line, Gen3 works best with some buffering, there is no reason to shutdown a parallel line if one of the other lines or the final line has a temporary shutdown.
The Austin factory might not have space for buffering, it could perhaps be considered a pilot line, or a series or gradually improving pilot lines.
Austin doesn't need to initially achieve a high run rate, some production will allow validation, testing, crash testing etc.
Tesla is increasingly starting out with lower volume pilot lines for new products, 4680, Semi, and perhaps others.
Some of the parallel lines may be common to the 2 Gen3 models, for low volume pilot production not all parallel lines need to be duplicated.
Compared to a Model Y line, 2 Gen3 pilot lines is in the range of 1 line to 1.2. lines.
We don't know how much space there is at Austin, but I think they can squeeze this in.
Eventually these pilot lines might move out of the main Austin building to make room for an additional CT line, perhaps not to Mexico, but to a new building at Austin, if this is necessary.
Looking at the shutdown at Austin and moving end-of-line across the highway, it might be related to set up to start low volume Robotaxi production.
So 500 by Feb 11 seems possible, but that would be most of them, they may only be building 100 per week by the start of 2024.
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Tesla investors: Don’t moan about Elon buying Twitter. Elon is a stable genius compared to those days 
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