For Tesla, 2018 looms large. That?s when the automaker claims that it will build 500,000 vehicles annually. And Tesla insists that it?s on track, despite recent setbacks. Key to the effort is its upcoming, more affordable Model 3 compact.
?We have completed the design phase of Model 3 and released Model 3 for tooling, production planning, and validation,? declared Tesla CEO Elon Musk and CFO Jason Wheeler in a shareholder letter. To scale up production, Tesla will rely on a ?machine that makes the machine? philosophy to vehicle manufacturing, aiming toward volumetric efficiency through automation.
?At the time the factory looks like an alien dreadnought, then you?ll know you?ve won,? mused Musk, using language, as he often does, that’s perhaps better recognized at a Star Trek convention than among his actual audience of fund managers on a conference call for investors. Readying for Model 3 Production
As if to immediately address naysayers who’ve declared the Model 3 to be vaporware and who often point to Tesla?s long history of product delays, Musk laid out more physical, on-the-ground details. He said some production equipment for the Model 3 is already ?on line??in context, presumably meaning the production line, in Fremont, California?with an initial capacity established at stamping and paint centers.
After a first half of 2016 that Musk characterized as ?production hell,? during which the automaker dealt with a number of production delays with its Model X...