Elon Musk Says That Too Many Robots Slowed Down Model 3 Production
| This story to delivery with seemed on Engadget
Tesla's cheap Mannequin three has been trapped in trend hell for what appears to be like love ages now, and in an interview with CBS's Gayle King, CEO Elon Musk equipped a itsy-bitsy bit more perception into how the manufacturing route of has fallen fast. While escorting King via the company's Fremont, Calif.-essentially essentially based factory, Musk conceded that Tesla may possibly possibly possibly've had too many robots alive to in its vehicle manufacturing route of and that the company would non-public the profit of having more humans on the line. And when King opined out loud that in some cases, acknowledged robots potentially slowed down manufacturing, Musk replied with a terse “yes, they did.”
Musk didn't rep to elaborate on the complexities of his factory setup, but he did prove one swear failure: the flexibility at one level mature a “crazy, advanced community of conveyor belts, and it modified into as soon as no longer working so [Tesla] got rid of the total factor.”
That Musk would've chosen to rely on a highly automatic facility is itsy-bitsy shock. Throughout a shareholder meeting in 2016, he excitedly well-known that he thinks of the factory itself as a product with the aptitude for huge breakthroughs. “We realized that the becoming allege, the becoming downside, and where one of the best capability is — is building the machine that makes the machine,” Musk acknowledged. “In other words, it's building the factory.”
Musk's plan to craft the machine that builds machines handiest picked up steam when Tesla obtained Perbix, an automatic manufacturing company that Tesla had prolonged-working alternate ties with. While the pass allowed Tesla to being more component manufacturing in-dwelling, it may possibly possibly possibly want introduced about silent more problems — Tesla temporarily suspended Mannequin three manufacturing for a week in February in section to “strengthen automation.” It appears to be like determined that Musk hasn't but struck the becoming balance between machines and the roughly 10,000 human workers on the Fremont factory.
Staunch to be determined despite the incontrovertible truth that, a surfeit of robots isn't one of the best aim Tesla has constantly fallen fast of its manufacturing targets. On the company's most most stylish earnings name, Musk candidly identified that factors with battery module manufacturing on the company's Gigafactory in Nevada modified into as soon as the “limiting factor” in Mannequin three output.
“We were potentially a itsy-bitsy bit overconfident, a itsy-bitsy bit complacent, in pondering right here’s one thing we perceive,” he acknowledged on the time. “We set apart reasonably just a few attention on other issues and stunning got too cheerful with our ability to construct battery modules, because we've been doing that since the commence of the company.”