Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
Presently,an automotive finish is the most expensive part of a vehicle.The lack of a spray booth and all the robotics will shave a lot off the cost of a production facility.And OPEC price shocks won't affect the price of the Tesla's 'finish.' Ever.  |
The paint shop isn't even close to the cost of the body-in-white. There are way more more tools, fixtures, and robots putting the unibody together and many are specific to a specific model.
The robots in the paint shop are shared between every model produced in the factory.
Also polished parts are way more expensive than painted parts to produce and much harder to keep from being damaged during assembly. Ours all have plastic films on the A-surface to keep them from being damaged. If they are damaged bare metal parts are very hard to repair. A polished mirror finish is pretty easy to fix but blending a matte finish to match the surrounding area is very specialized work.