Updates
October 22, 2017: from a reader regarding EV battery packs during really, really cold weather --a battery that could provide 1500 kW (around 200 hp) at 30° C would only deliver 325 kW (50hP) at 0° C or a paltry 163 kW (25hp) at - 10° C. This is from a $20,000 power pack. If you live in the Dakotas, and you drive your EV to work, starting it might not be a problem but htat 25 HP motor might take awhile to get you there.
October 22, 2017: catching up on my e-mail. These links were sent to me while I was "on vacation." The stories are from a year ago or so, but something I had not posted earlier, as far as I can recall. Two links:]
- Tesla aside, used electric car resale values are tanking
- resale values for electric cars continue to drop, not for Teslas
Original Post
It appears there are two main issues:
- batteries and the gigafactory
- switch from all-aluminum in models S and X to a mix of aluminum and steel in the Model 3
Tesla's Q3 vehicle delivery report showed only 220 Model 3s being delivered with 260 being produced. Tesla blamed the low count on “production bottlenecks” and stated:
Although the vast majority of manufacturing subsystems at both our car plant and our Nevada Gigafactory are able to operate at high rate, a handful have taken longer to activate than expected.This makes it sound as if there are just isolated problems in the production chain and that most of it is working as planned. An article today from the Wall Street Journal paints a very different picture:
Unknown to analysts, investors and the hundreds of thousands of customers who signed up to buy it, as recently as early September major portions of the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand, away from the automated production line, according to people familiar with the matter.
While the car’s production began in early July, the advanced assembly line Tesla has boasted of building still wasn’t fully ready as of a few weeks ago, the people said. Tesla’s factory workers had been piecing together parts of the cars in a special area while the company feverishly worked to finish the machinery designed to produce Model 3’s at a rate of thousands a week, the people said.It was obvious back in July when the first “production” Model 3s were delivered to Tesla insiders and employees that these were unlikely to have been produced on a true mass production line. Back then I wrote:
It's reasonable to assume that all the parts and components of the cars are production parts, whether from suppliers or from Tesla's own factories.
What isn't likely is that the cars have gone through the final assembly process as it will be in a few months time. Tesla has committed to a highly automated assembly process, but it's unlikely that this is fully operational. Most likely, there was a very substantial amount of hand assembly that won't be needed once the production line is fully operational.In fact, it now appears that not even all the components of the Model 3 were final production parts. Electrek.co has reported that Tesla has been replacing “prototype” parts with production parts in Model 3s delivered in July. These include the seats, headlight and tail lights, and the all-important battery packs.
The WSJ report indicates that Tesla is still where I thought it was back in July. And the article points out that there is limited value in hand assembly of Model 3 at this point, since it doesn't serve to test out the final assembly process.
Hand assembly of the Model 3 now seems mainly designed to soothe investors by convincing them that Model 3 “production” has started. What I find so distressing about this is that increasingly, Tesla's actions seem to be governed not by technical necessity but by the need to keep investors sold on Tesla.
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Out Of Stock
Out Of Stock
I believe 50,000 were minted. 50,000 or 50,500.
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