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Posted onEVANNEX on August 07, 2020byCharles Morris

The most critical part is manufacturing the carswhat Tesla calls the machine that makes the machine. As they teach us in Business 101, the secret of Henry Fords success wasnt so much the Model T itself as the assembly line he developed to build the Model T.

For Big Auto, manufacturing is something theyve been doing for a century or so, and its not something they talk about much. True, concepts such asthe Toyota Way andkaisenare taught in advanced biz classes, but theyre nowadays considered pretty mature technologies.

When Eberhard and Tarpenning set out to build an electric vehicle back in 2003, they knew they could never duplicate the Toyota Way, and they didnt bother to trythey subbed out almost every component of the Roadster, and contracted with Lotus to do the manufacturing.

With Model S however, Tesla set out to do its own manufacturingand it wasnt easy. As Matthew DeBord notes in a recentBusiness Insiderarticle, the company has struggled through Production Hell, from the fit-and-finish issues with Model S to the flaky Falcon Wing doors on Model X to theoverzealous automationon the early Model 3 assembly line, which necessitated the infamous tent in the parking lot.

DeBord was one of many in the media whoinitially ridiculedthat tent (its actually a sprung aluminum structure, and its still in service). Now, however, he understands that it was an innovative solution to a pressing problem, and helped Tesla deliver around 250,000 vehicles in 2019. That hastily improvised solution was not the first in Teslas history, and it probably wont be the last. The companys startup mentality includes a willingness to try unorthodox ways of getting things done in order to get its products to market quickly. Thats one of the reasons its been able to leapfrog the legacy automakers, despite their vastly greater resources and expertise (it also generatessome cracking good stories).

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Over the years, manufacturing has gradually moved to center stage at Tesla, so much so that Elon Musk recently described it as nothing less than an obsession. We bring a massive amount of effort into manufacturing engineering, the machine that makes the machine, he said on Teslas most recent earnings call. We love manufacturing...Its awesome. And I really think more smart people should be working on manufacturing.

The relentless focus is now starting to pay off in a big way. By all accounts, Teslas quality control has improved exponentially, and were seeing nowhere near the number of complaints about panel gaps and paint defects that we did a couple of years ago. When manufacturing engineering expert Sandy Munro tore down a Model Y, he foundhuge improvements in the build quality. The body build is 1,000% better, said Sandy, who famously made some scathing comments about Model 3s body construction. There are still issues, but theyre minor in comparison to what I have seen in the past.

The constant improvements to Teslas production process translate not only into better quality, but reduced costs. Munro has predicted that the upcoming Cybertrucks simple body design and lack of paint should make itvastly cheaper to buildthan a traditional truck.

As Teslas production gradually expands from its Fremont factory, which it inherited from Toyota, to purpose-built facilities where it can build production lines from the ground up, incorporating the latest and greatest production learnings, the quality and cost improvements are bound to accelerate. DeBord notes that this should enable Tesla to reduce the cost of its vehicles, while continuing to report consistent profits. That means more market share and a bigger lead over much larger automakers that, when it comes to the electric future, find themselves in serious catch-up mode, he writes.

DeBord estimates that each of the new Gigafactories could build 250,000 vehicles a year, bringing Teslas total production to over a million units per year. The alien dreadnoughts are multiplyingand theyre coming for the legacy automakers.

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Written by:Charles Morris; Source:Business Insider

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Is Tesla's Obsession With Manufacturing Really Starting To Pay Off? - InsideEVs