Tesla Model 3

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I have noticed virtually all the tesla fan boys don't own teslas.

I'm in the market for an EV, but I won't place an order before the price is set and delivery time is predictable.
Outside of that, the Model 3 is much more attractive than anyone else's EV in the reasonable price range, or even barring that.

Again on fanboy. I object more to the 'boy' part that the fan part.
Are you blind to what it implies? Or is it deliberate?
And why should anyone be labeled anyway?

[oil pan 4]

The delivery time is predictable.
They have 400,000 to 420,000 cars on back order and they "build" about 5,000 per week.
And no one is loaning them money to expand their production line.
The wait should be about 80 weeks give or take a bankruptcy.

I would say that right now teslas are being way over bought and over hyped.
Same thing happened with the nissan leaf. In 2009 to 2010 people were going crazy and getting on 1 to 2 year long wait lists and paying thousands over msrp.
Stop me if this doesn't sound exactly like what is happening with the tesla cars right now...
Now 8 years later the early ones have lost 80% or more of their value and no one wants them.
These early mass produced teslas will probably see a similar fate.

[RedDevil]

I should have added 'and when my Insight is on the way out' which it isn't.

If I had to replace now I can't buy new; it would be an used Leaf, or maybe a 3rd gen Prius. Given a year: probably a Hyundai Ioniq EV. One more: Model 3 base.
I hope the Insight will soldier on for a while.

Then, the 4th gen Prius is very economical. Who knows what a 2 year old 4th gen PiP will do by then. I'm not completely ruling that out either.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

While it really does seem trivial, it says something about manufacturing techniques/sophistication when a factory can't produce consistent part tolerances.

Maybe it's not technically important because they're only body panels. But it raises the question of what other unseen parts/engineering might be sub-par.

AFAIK, the issues are with alignment, not part tolerances. At the same time, it's valid to point out that a Tesla likely has a less luxurious interior than a similarly priced conventional luxury car.

Tesla decided to focus on the pack, drivetrain, handling, and systems integration. Other manufacturers can focus on the interior first and put everything else after that.

Before we got hitched, DW's Audi went through 3 water pumps in it's first 36k miles, but at least it didn't have panel gap issues? Actually, it could have, I never checked for panel gap until certain media outlets put the 3 under a microscope. As it turns out, the 2014 Plug-in Prius we bought new has worse issues with panel gap than our 3, so... yeah?

[MetroMPG]

Good point. I never look either. Although I made a point of looking at gaps on the only 3 I've seen in person.

[freebeard]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tesla+headbutt

The official factory panel alignment technique is called the headbutt.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

AFAIK, the issues are with alignment, not part tolerances.

Poor alignment comes from either not being able to produce parts to the tolerance or not calculating the tolerance stack correctly in the design stage.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by JSH

Poor alignment comes from either not being able to produce parts to the tolerance or not calculating the tolerance stack correctly in the design stage.

All the alignment issues I've read about have been correctable, not problems producing parts to tolerance and/or calculating tolerance in the design stage. I wouldn't be surprised to see an uptick in issues with alignment now that Tesla's hit the phase out period for the federal tax credit, but I haven't read about anything the service centers haven't been able to fix.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

All the alignment issues I've read about have been correctable, not problems producing parts to tolerance and/or calculating tolerance in the design stage. I wouldn't be surprised to see an uptick in issues with alignment now that Tesla's hit the phase out period for the federal tax credit, but I haven't read about anything the service centers haven't been able to fix.

Alignment issues are due to part issues. No one is manually adjusting panels on the assembly line. Instead the operator places a gauge block between two panels that sets the correct gap and then tightens the bolts. That only works if the panels are correct. If they parts are not correct then the gap will be off and the errors will stack on top of each other from panel to panel. Yes, the panels MIGHT be able to be fixed by having a technician loosen everything up and try to "best fit" the gaps but that is a very slow and expensive rework.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by JSH

Alignment issues are due to part issues. No one is manually adjusting panels on the assembly line. Instead the operator places a gauge block between two panels that sets the correct gap and then tightens the bolts. That only works if the panels are correct. If they parts are not correct then the gap will be off and the errors will stack on top of each other from panel to panel. Yes, the panels MIGHT be able to be fixed by having a technician loosen everything up and try to "best fit" the gaps but that is a very slow and expensive rework.

Alignment issues can be due to part manufacturing issues, but they can also be due to assembly issues. Everything I've seen suggests the problems with panel alignment on the 3 are in assembly, not panel/parts production. Until we start building cars where the panels align perfectly regardless of how they're assembled, there can be issues with panel gap/etc during assembly.