Toyota Owners Jump Ship to Tesla

that's just the m/o of wall street. the old boys get together to keep stocks bobbing like a yo-yo. they make money in both directions.

 

Ya, will be interesting to see what Q2 results look like. Less burn I assume then before. Then there should be a small profit for Q3 and 4.

 

Well, you can look at my (hopefully isolated, but I think the number is significant enough to result in added cash burn for Q2) case where corners were cut on vehicle transportation resulting in damage during transit for delivery on 4-26 (shipped with no protective covering, which they corrected in early to mid May; even so, anywhere from a third to one-half of the vehicles at a Birmingham, AL hub were recently shown to be without protective coverings), and then, to add insult to injury, at least in the market where my vehicle was delivered, they were contracting with a second tier body shop (and shunning their higher end shop with whom they had previously contracted before the release of the 3), so the repair had to be completed 3 times to reach a satisfactory result. I won't soon forget the frustration and dissatisfaction with these time (especially mine) and cash-bleeding oversights.

 

This seems to be isolated, from what I'm hearing. It's not that uncommon for vehicles to be unprotected while being transported. Most people I know who have taken delivery lately have had no issues or very tiny ones if they did have any.

 

I would agree isolated, but also not as isolated as it should be.
This is an area where improvement will help average owner satisfaction as well as save Tesla money.
Improvements have already happened. I see no reason they won’t continue.

Vinnie, really sorry you had to go through this. I hope everything gets taken care of!

 

@vinnie97 do you have your car back?

 

Nope. It's in the wrap/ceramic coating stage, so you could technically say I do, but it's all being done remotely (I'm 2 hours from the service center/detailer/wrapper), so I've barely been able to see the completed work in less than ideal lighting. Now aside from the passenger door panel misalignment, the paint chip could be classified as minor but still required competence/precision to correct. In hindsight, it was absolutely a reason to refuse delivery. If there's a next time, I won't get rid of my current vehicle until I am safely in its replacement (this made me dependent on Tesla's loaner program and compromised contractor decisions until I got an outside pro with a finer eye for detail involved).

 

Just so I understand, the delay in getting your car at this time, has nothing to do with Tesla?

How many cars at the Birmingham delivery center had paint chips? I just had my Prius at a body shop repairing some work that was my fault. They had two new GMC trucks that had just arrived at the local dealership with paint chips. They said they get them all the time. When I see car carriers on the local freeways from every manufacturer, some are wrapped and some aren't. I wonder whether paint chips on new vehicles are caused by lack of wrapping or carelessness by inattentive truck drivers.

 

The body work was completed last Wednesday. That's 9 weeks post delivery, totally unacceptable. What's currently being completed is work I had planned for completion at the beginning of May. Part of the detail work also involves fixing imperfections in factory paint (some taken care of last Thursday in prep for the partial wrap), so I'm not leaving them totally blameless in week 10 either. I can't definitively say anything about the vehicles at the Birmingham hub aside from them not being consistently protected.

 

I was also without a rental vehicle for 1-1/2 weeks and using a bike for transport in summery triple digit heat. In spite of all this bitching, I will give them credit for allowing the repair to be completed by the more competent shop and letting me continue to keep the ICE rental (that they eventually provided) until the final detailing is done.

 

There is no way you can sustian production numbers with the deficiency of a production system that relies on automation that causes manufacturing defects, wasteful materials, bottlenecks, increase in operating cost, time and supply demand. There’s a reason why Toyota’s Production System is human centuralized. With manual labor, assembly line workers can inspect every single part durning assembly to elimate defective parts once a defect is found. Takt Time is used to prevent bottlenecks when there is a problem or assembly worker on the production line didn’t finish in time. Kaizen, “continously improvement” is used throught the entire production process. Quality is lacking with a rushed half baked product out the door, with no room for continuously improvement. Elon Musk philoshphy is “Build Fast Fix It Later”. There’s no reason that the company should need to build a tent outside when GM/Toyota that used the very same plant was able to mass produce millions of vehicles with no problems using an efficient Just-in-Time lean manufacturing system.

 

As you pointed out before, Tesla is making many parts in house. Their plant is not simply a car assembly plant like it was when GM and Toyota ran it. So less space could be available for the final assembly of vehicles. The use of water based paints vs. the old solvent ones might require more square footage.

If automation is so ineffecient and wasteful, why does it even exist?

 

It seems as though Tesla actually brought back some of the ways things were done in the early days of the automotive industry.
By controlling production of parts made on site instead of using outside vendors and suppliers so much.
Back in the early days car manufacturers even made their own steel.

 

Why does Elon work it's employees like dogs burning them out? Thats no way manufacture a product. Tesla's production lines is pure ineffecient. Tesla relys too much on automation. About 40% parts turn up defective, too many shop fires and scrap waste. The place is very disorangized and a mess. Deming's practice is the only way to fix the company.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20180703/OEM05/180709923/tesla-model-3-elon-musk?

 

I guess 3 months should be a good timeframe to see if you are right?

 

Bizarro world with DailyKos pitting itself against a labor union. The battle lines are like lines in the sand anymore.

 

You know how to pick Em!