@ModelXBoy I would generally agree, but after watching things since ordering my X, I'd add a little (speculative, but I think accurate) detail...
- Late Q4/January: They issue a relatively small number of VIN's and the factory spins up production. This first round of X's is has many issues and require a lot of QA/QC and manual fixes. When the scale and nature of the problems are apparent, the line is shut down in late January to retool the manufacturing process and components used.
- Most of February: Applying lessons learned from the initial run to the manufacturing line. Almost no VIN's issued and the line is not being run. Problem cars from #1 begin to get reworked.
- Late February/Early March: Line and component modifications have been made as best they know. They have one month to produce for Q1 to satisfy customers and Wall Street. They issue a flood of VINS, enough to ensure that the line could be run flat out through the end of the month with some buffer.
- March: The line runs full speed and customer deliveries begin in volume. Quality is much better but erratic. Some cars are flawless, others have issues. Line and deliveries continue at volume in order to gather enough statistical data to do root cause analysis for quality problems, satisfy Wall Street with a good number of deliveries, and get many cars with no issues into customer's hands. Some smaller changes made on the fly on the line, but nothing major in order to keep the line running. Very few new VIN's are assigned after the initial burst in early March.
- Early April: Line is taken back down to incorporate lessons learned from the March burst of deliveries. Process/components are modified to address any quality root causes identified.
- Speculation below...
- ??? (Mid April?): Next flood of VIN's released and line is brought back up. Most manufacturing quality problems identified and addressed. Lessons learned and new components used to fix cars returned for quality issues.
I'd expect that cars produced beginning late April/early May will have many fewer problems. The most heartening news to me was hearing that they took the line down in February and I saw a comment somewhere that they are taking it down again now, at least for a few days or a week. In the "bad old days" of some of the auto manufacturers, the biggest quality problems occurred when the company was afraid to ever stop the line. This meant that any quality problems (from either components or process) would get locked into the way the cars were being produced and massive amounts of bad product got made. One of the big lessons that got brought from the Japanese manufacturers to the US was to not be afraid to stop the line and retool things.