“STINK” MIGHT HAVE BEEN A BETTER WORD: Tesla’s New Car Smell.
Jean-Louis Gassée:
My first serious doubts about Tesla didn’t stem from missed schedules, I’ve been guilty of too many of these, they’re part of tech life. What seriously worried me was a July 2016 visit to Tesla’s manufacturing plant in Fremont, California. In taking delivery of my wife’s Model S, we were treated to a group tour of the site. Everyone marveled at the robot porn, at the activity on the assembly line, at the endless stores of spare parts piled to the ceiling.
Everyone but yours truly.
I couldn’t help check off the sins against the “Toyota Bible”, prescriptions for car manufacturers that are lucidly detailed in The Machine That Changed The World (a great and, in parts, sad read). In particular, one mustn’t stockpile parts on the floor, they must be fed in small quantities at small time intervals. If a part has a problem, only a small quantity needs to be shipped back to the supplier who can inspect, correct, and quickly adjust their own production process.
As I watched Tesla’s messy, hiccuping line, with workers dashing in to fix faulty parts in place, my mind travelled back to the Honda plant I had visited years ago in Marysville, Ohio. Clean, calm, everything moved smoothly. I was so shocked by the contrast that I imprudently voiced my concern. That didn’t go over well with my fellow Tesla owners. I was a killjoy, I was calling their choice into question.
What Gassée saw in 2016 was production of either the already well-established Tesla S and X — any production hiccups on those models should have long been hammered out by then.
Needless to say, that doesn’t bode well for Elon Musk’s goal of growing Tesla from a boutique manufacturer (S and X models) to a mass manufacturer (Model 3) over just the next few months. And judging by the reaction from his fellow Tesla owners Gassée witnessed last year, the emotional fallout from a failed Model 3 is going to be epic.
Maybe Tesla’s future is in sourcing batteries to carmakers who know how to build cars.