[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by JSH

The entire Model 3 launch fiasco was the most likely outcome given the choices Musk made:

1. Set an unreasonably tight time table
2. Choose to automate things that your employees and the automation experts you hired said should be assembled manually.
3. Choose to skip soft tooling (To try to keep the unreasonable timetable)
4. Refuse to use industry standards like Kanban because they are industry standards.

There's a reason Kanban and likewise aren't used everywhere. Same with soft tooling. Tesla uses a try and learn method, which is good - if you make sure you do not repeat the same mistake (or if you do, you must recognize it and learn from that).

Originally Posted by JSH

Launching a new model is not that difficult but when a company chooses to cut corners bad things happen. There is nothing new about designing a steel unibody or building an assembly line. It is something that companies have been doing for decades but Musk bungled because he refused to learn from the market leaders.

Tesla did not design 'a' steel unibody, but one specifically tailor made for a BEV, with unrivaled safety. Tesla had reasons not to use traditional assembly line technology, and maybe some of that backfired, but not all. Progress comes at a cost.

Originally Posted by JSH

There should not be any retooling required. This is brand new assembly line made for a brand new product. The line should support full model flexibility from day 1.

It's not the car there but the battery module assembly in the Gigafactory. For what I know a different sized battery needs different tooling, ideally a completely separate line. But that's costly.

Originally Posted by JSH

I can see that it makes sense to start with more expenses models and then only add cheaper models as necessary to keep the production schedule full. The topic of discussion is when Tesla made that decision. I believe that was the plan from the start. I believe that when Musk promised in 2016 that Tesla would build a $35,000 Model 3 in 2017 he knew that would not happen. I believe Musk promised a $35K Model 3 for sale in 2017 to boost reservations.

Do you believe Tesla intended to launch the Model 3 with the $35,000 version?

Yes, of course. Tesla's schedules are tight but possible if nothing major goes wrong. Cutting edge technology projects habitually go way past their original planning, with that in mind Tesla does not do too badly.

What Musk did not foresee (and what amazed me greatly) was the lax response of the industry. From the moment the original Roadster came out it was obvious that high performance, reasonable range EVs were a reality.
Nothing much happened. The Leaf and Zoe had small ranges and looked odd. The luxury and performance marked ignored EVs (except for that other startup, Fisker). So the market for upscale versions of the Model 3 was bigger than could be expected.

Musk did not expect the severity of the startup problems nor the lax response of the competition, otherwise the base model would already be on sale. He wanted to boost reservations, fully expecting to deliver.