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Blog Watch a Tesla Paint Robot Spray the Model 3

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Elon Musk has has pointed to Tesla’s paint shop as one of the areas that has slowed Model 3 production. In fact, he said in a letter to employees in June that the paint shop needed “radical improvements.”

Nearly two months later, it seems Tesla is proud enough of its paint shop to show it off. The company shared a video Wednesday of a robot spraying paint on a Model 3 in production.


Musk has mentioned the paint shop a few times in describing the depths of Model 3 “production hell.” During his around-the-clock stays at the Tesla factory, it seems he was spending quite a bit of time in the paint shop. Perhaps, it was the lurking bossman that helped kick the shop into gear and solve the bottleneck.

In an interview last month with Bloomberg, Musk sad, “The reason people in the paint shop were working their asses off was because I was with them. I’m not in some ivory tower.”

 
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Too bad it doesn't detect for contaminants before it paints!

Mine had too many, took it to Tesla Service center, likely need to repaint the whole car! Without the utters! haha
I saw the pictures you posted of your car. Unbelievable! Hopefully this machine is to replace the rattle can system they were doing in the parking lot for yours. Tesla should really give you a new car. Repainting a whole car to factory quality is not practical. Maybe they can sell it CPO as the the first $35k Model 3 :p
 
Shouldn't paint be one of the easiest things to automate? Am I missing something here?
painting at speed - capacity - daily output - 1 or 2 thousand cars a day - how many gallons per day? per hour?
Where and how long to dry??
You get the idea, right?

You can make almost anything. Producing that anything at scale and making money well it is complex...especially vehicles.
 
painting at speed - capacity - daily output - 1 or 2 thousand cars a day - how many gallons per day? per hour?
Where and how long to dry??
You get the idea, right?

You can make almost anything. Producing that anything at scale and making money well it is complex...especially vehicles.
I'm not saying it's easy, just saying it seems like it would be the easiest thing to automate.
What part would be hard compared to painting by hand? It just seems like you'd program the motion control and be done.