Tesla reportedly turning out high ratio of flawed Model 3 parts, forcing assembly line repairs
Tesla’s Model 3 production slowdown is largely due to a high ratio of the parts and cars the company manufactures being flawed and needing extensive repair at the factory, several current and former employees recently told CNBC.
One current Tesla engineer said about 40 per cent of parts made at or received by the automaker’s Fremont, Calif., production facility required “rework” on the assembly line, the news network reports.
The luxury carmaker had lofty goals for the production of what was supposed to be its first massmarket offering, the Model 3 sedan, with Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk suggesting in July 2017 that the company would be turning out 20,000 a month by December of that year.
That estimate was readjusted, and has now been lowered to 10,000 per month by April 1, 2018; and 20,000 monthly by the end of June.
More than 400,000 interested buyers have put down a refundable US$1,000 deposit for the car.
The production targets Tesla has set for the Model 3 are made particularly hard to hit by this reported too-high defect rate, a current employee told CNBC, and failure to reach weekly quotas is in turn driving down employee morale.
Furthermore, both current and former employees claimed Tesla has been trying to fix problems with some flawed or damaged parts by sending them to its remanufacturing facility in Lathrop, Calif., instead of repairing them in-factory, a highly unusual move.
Most automakers only use remanufactured parts in certified pre-owned vehicles or already-sold cars in need of repair.
Tesla denies any reworking of new car assembly-line parts is being completed in Lathrop, and instead underscored to CNBC that the company ’s quality control testing for new vehicles involves more than 500 inspections, so that the company can “produce perfect cars for every customer.”
“Even during what is considered ‘launch’ mode, if a company is selling its cars to customers, it should not be experiencing large amounts of rework,” lean manufacturing specialist Matt Girvan told the news network. “This speaks to an internal quality issue that is on a magnitude that is not normal for most car manufacturers.”
Tesla admitted last week that it halted Model 3 assembly lines in February to make production process improvements.
It has also acknowledged that it’s having battery production problems.