There is no Beta Model 3 - confirmed today by Elon

[Red Sage]

You think Elon is finally addressing the coat hook deficiency? I'm hoping his engineers also solve that trash receptacle problem.

No one in California wears actual coats. They are illegal or something, I'm sure. Especially the ones for Raiders, Kings, and Warriors. As for trash receptacles... California has adopted the New York principle that 'All the World is Your Ashtray/Urinal!'

As a red-blooded American from the Northeast, I also hope that large coffees/travel mugs are taken into account as well.....especially in a car capable of mostly driving itself, I'll have more time to drink larger beverages.

No one in the automotive realm has been allowed to exceed the Chrysler Town & Country's early 1990's benchmark of 3.5 cupholders per occupant. Only drivers are allowed beverages in excess of 44 oz in California and those must contain 'sparkling apple juice' (AKA Malt Liquor), not coffee.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

No one in California wears actual coats. They are illegal or something, I'm sure. Especially the ones for Raiders, Kings, and Warriors. As for trash receptacles... California has adopted the New York principle that 'All the World is Your Ashtray/Urinal!'



No one in the automotive realm has been allowed to exceed the Chrysler Town & Country's early 1990's benchmark of 3.5 cupholders per occupant. Only drivers are allowed beverages in excess of 44 oz in California and those must contain 'sparkling apple juice' (AKA Malt Liquor), not coffee.

try putting a large Dunkin Donuts iced coffee in the cup holders of a German car. You will either make a mess, or activate your HVAC.

 

[Uncle Paul]

I don't remember Mary Barra dropping "well, the Bolt will be released by the end of 2016 AS LONG AS LG does what they are supposed to do" lines leading up to the Bolt release. Just sayin'.

Tesla has mentioned years ago, that because they are a new and unproven company, many suppliers will not supply them with their smaller sized parts orders, and they need to go to the newer suppliers that will. This often causes supply chain issues, where Tesla needs to be light on their feed to correct when they occur.

 

[jerjozwik]

No one in California wears actual coats. They are illegal or something, I'm sure.

read while sitting in the sun on a 85* day in burbank wearing a black conan the barbarian hoodie. that being said i have never looked for a coat hanger in my s. my jackets usually get thrown on the seat or floor.

 

[Bokonon]

Yes, that tweak makes a big difference. For those who simply read the headline, they may think the existing title confirms the previous rumor that Tesla hasn't built any betas yet because they're behind schedule.

I had the exact same thought.

I'd actually prefer an abbreviated form of this thread's title (i.e. up to the hyphen)...

Tesla Model 3 ‘release candidates’ are currently being built – Musk notes ‘almost entirely built wit

... because it uses affirmative logic to describe something that is happening, rather than negative logic to describe something that is not happening.

 

[tomas]

Even for software development, after initial prototyping, and alpha phase
where all the various components are merged together, there is a beta phase
for which the resulting product is submitted to beta customers before full delivery.

You have to remember that the earlier a bug or any glitch is discover,
the less expensive the full process of fixing and validating the problem will be.

Also when fixing a problem, there are always unexpected regressions or side effects
as you can only perform individual testing but not a full testing, because many components
get fixed separately and merged later.

Only Beta testing allows to define a frozen stage before the final product release.

I think, as a summary, that the M3 Beta testers will be the Tesla employees
who will receive the first deliveries batches.


Note: May be Tesla want to follow the Space X model where it is not feasible
to test and validate a full rocket before launch, and the only full test is the final take off!

Yes Beta test is a software term. I personally never heard it used for a car until Tesla, which is of course the first Silicon Valley auto mfg, so I guess they've adopted the lingo. For that matter, same for release candidate... I guess they pretty universally describe R&D phases so OK to use, but let's not get upset if they don't follow software approach religiously... it's a car!

 

[S'toon]

Yes Beta test is a software term. I personally never heard it used for a car until Tesla, which is of course the first Silicon Valley auto mfg, so I guess they've adopted the lingo. For that matter, same for release candidate... I guess they pretty universally describe R&D phases so OK to use, but let's not get upset if they don't follow software approach religiously... it's a car!

There was a post somewhere in the Model 3 forums by an auto insider who said that the language of alpha prototypes, beta prototypes, etc is standard auto industry language.

 

[tomas]

There was a post somewhere in the Model 3 forums by an auto insider who said that the language of alpha prototypes, beta prototypes, etc is standard auto industry language.

OK news to me. How'd they keep it secret so long?

 

[ggies07]

I don't remember Mary Barra dropping "well, the Bolt will be released by the end of 2016 AS LONG AS LG does what they are supposed to do" lines leading up to the Bolt release. Just sayin'.

That's because she sits by Trump asking for their cars to pollute more than they do now.

 

[mikevbf]

Tesla has mentioned years ago, that because they are a new and unproven company, many suppliers will not supply them with their smaller sized parts orders, and they need to go to the newer suppliers that will. This often causes supply chain issues, where Tesla needs to be light on their feed to correct when they occur.

Musk actually addressed this specifically in the last earnings call. (paraphrasing) He said where in the past they had to work B team supplier because many thought they would not make many vehicles and even possibly go out of business, now suppliers are clamoring to work with them and they are able to contract with all A team suppliers.

 

[bjelkeman]

Doesn't seem there will be much time to winter test the cars then. The Model S has some annoying design deficiencies when it comes to winter use. Here is to hoping they learned from that.

 

[UnitaryExecutive]

The thing about Tesla and Elon is they're always over optimistic and late. 100k cars delivered this year became 80k cars and then 76k cars. Probably won't need to do a raise became a we should do a raise for safety. The original Tesla Energy ramp was estimated at December of last year and they're not in the exponential part of the S curve yet.

What Elon means when he says cars delivered in July is that some number of early cars will be delivered to Tesla employees (probably < 100) by the last day of July and they'll all be production tooling but clearly not production quality. That way they can say they delivered in July while skipping the beta stage and using employees as early canaries in the coal mine. They'll work out the bugs on the line and in the cars then ramp to 1000 cars a week by September, which will still be all employee cars. The number will slowly increase throughout the year to 2500 and they'll do 1 week where they push like mad at the end of December where they crank out 5000 cars in a week, thus saying they met their goal.

The mistake folks make is thinking July means early July. It means a few cars delivered at the end of July and may be later given Tesla's timing. Setting really optimistic goals and missing a bit isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Petra]

What Elon means when he says cars delivered in July is that some number of early cars will be delivered to Tesla employees (probably < 100) by the last day of July and they'll all be production tooling but clearly not production quality. That way they can say they delivered in July while skipping the beta stage and using employees as early canaries in the coal mine. They'll work out the bugs on the line and in the cars then ramp to 1000 cars a week by September, which will still be all employee cars. The number will slowly increase throughout the year to 2500 and they'll do 1 week where they push like mad at the end of December where they crank out 5000 cars in a week, thus saying they met their goal.

The mistake folks make is thinking July means early July. It means a few cars delivered at the end of July and may be later given Tesla's timing. Setting really optimistic goals and missing a bit isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the official stance from Tesla and Elon that July is their start of production target date/supplier readiness date and deliveries are still slated for "late 2017"?

 

[BluestarE3]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the official stance from Tesla and Elon that July is their start of production target date/supplier readiness date and deliveries are still slated for "late 2017"?

That's my understanding as well. It's the "impossible" target date for internal and external suppliers to be ready and able to supply parts for the Model 3. And if a supplier isn't ready, Tesla may have to take production of that part in-house. Not the same as producing cars for customers (whether internal or external) in July or soon thereafter as some recent stories seem to indicate.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the official stance from Tesla and Elon that July is their start of production target date/supplier readiness date and deliveries are still slated for "late 2017"?

Right, July is their target production start date. Initially it was only a supplier date (not actual production), but Tesla seems ahead of schedule (production might actually start then).

Deliveries were originally planned for late 2017, but the latest update puts it at second half (so it seems Tesla expects deliveries to happen sooner than expected). They also said they expect to hit 5000 per week some time in the 4th quarter.
Tesla starts making new Model 3 prototypes, says on track for production in July and 5,000 units/week by year end

 

[NeverFollow]

Yes Beta test is a software term. I personally never heard it used for a car until Tesla, which is of course the first Silicon Valley auto mfg, so I guess they've adopted the lingo. For that matter, same for release candidate... I guess they pretty universally describe R&D phases so OK to use, but let's not get upset if they don't follow software approach religiously... it's a car!

For me a Tesla is a PC with a big battery....

What I mean is that a Tesla would certainly not be able to move one inch if the software get buggy,
even if the AP is not activated.

I wonder how many lines of code are used to make the car running,
such a getting information from tons of sensors and controllers to activate various devices.

Building sophisticated software products is a complex endeavor with a lot of
unit tests, integration tests, smoke tests, regression tests...

I know that the M3 will inherit a lot from the MS and MX, still there will be a lot of new innovations:
The Tesla Model 3 will have futuristic 'spaceship' steering controls, says Elon Musk

For example, see the following issues encountered when adding a 5 miles extension to the current BART train:
Software Snafu Delays BART's Warm Springs Station Project

 

[Sharkbait]

That's because she sits by Trump asking for their cars to pollute more than they do now.

Does this mean VW gets a pass?

 

[AustinPowers]

I think, as a summary, that the M3 Beta testers will be the Tesla employees
who will receive the first deliveries batches.

Wasn't that the plan all along?

 

[AustinPowers]

That's because she sits by Trump asking for their cars to pollute more than they do now.

Funny to see the Stars and Stripes in the back, and then in front only 3 (or four) of the cars are actually American. If I saw correctly, the left line from back to front is Merc, Nissan, Hyundai, Honda, Ford, while the right is Kia, ?, BMW, Chevy, Jeep. Perhaps the second from back on the right could be a Toyota, which is otherwise missing in the lineup, but anyway. Sure, many if not all of these cars are produced in the US, but the earnings from them go to foreign countries. Thanks, The Donald.

 

[tsla007]

Now why is that?
Because gas cars can't keep up with EVs at the same price. Other manu don't want to invest trillions to ev charging and infra changes.
They refuse to do it. Give us looser restrictions for pollution so we can compete and kill ourselves.