Report

Tesla reworked 86 percent of Model 3s to reach production target

More brand new cars needed reworking than first previously thought

UPDATE: A Tesla spokesperson responded to Autoblog with the following statement:

"Our goal is to produce a perfect car for every customer. In order to ensure the highest quality, we review every vehicle for even the smallest refinement before it leaves the factory. Dedicated inspection teams track every car throughout every shop in the assembly line and every vehicle is then subjected to an additional quality control process towards the end of line. And all of this happens before a vehicle leaves the factory and is delivered to a customer. Notably, Tesla has the highest customer satisfaction level in the entire global auto industry, and relative to every other car company in the world, Tesla has the most customers who say their next car will be a Tesla. That is the true test of customer happiness. We've also seen huge improvements on Model 3 quality. Our customer satisfaction scores for Model 3 quality have averaged about 90% since January, with steady improvement through the year, even as the number of cars delivered has rapidly multiplied. And our factory efficiency has also improved, with the number of labor hours per Model 3 produced declining by nearly 30% since last quarter."


The original story follows:

Tesla had to rework over 4,300 of the 5,000 Model 3s it built during the last week of June, according to documents attained by Business Insider. This means that Tesla had a first pass yield (FPY) rate of about 14 percent as it reached its production goal of building 5,000 cars in a week. The FPY is the rate at which cars make it through the manufacturing process without requiring rework after the fact.

In general, the automotive industry accomplishes a 65-80 percent rate according to manufacturing expert and Harbour Consulting President, Ron Harbour. This puts production of Tesla's Model 3 at least 51 percent off the pace of most other automotive plants for now.

On average, Tesla spent 37 minutes repairing each car needing fixes. What those exact repairs consisted of are still unknown, but Tesla stated that rework includes minor issues and not necessarily major overhauls.

BI also stated that the most common reason for a car needing reworking was because of a "failed manual task." Various cosmetic issues were the result of these failures, one we saw on Twitter just last week on a delivered car. Of course, having to perform these repairs slows the entire production process down and hurts the final production number.

It's not all bad news for Tesla though. Even with the low first pass yield rate, it says the number of labor hours per Model 3 produced has decreased by nearly 30 percent since last quarter. Elon Musk says his figure of making 5,000 cars a week was met several times in July as well.

Over a month has gone by since these figures were reported for the last week of June, so the current rate could be different. We reached out to Tesla for further information about more current production yield, but Tesla declined to comment.

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