Elon Musk assured in a meeting with investors that they were working on a new production format that he assures will revolutionize the industry. A system that will rethink the traditional methods of automobile production to produce more units, cheaper and at the same time achieve higher profits.
Tesla announced the new process last March during its Investor Day event, where Tesla executives said at the time that this new process would help make Tesla’s next-generation models “simplified and less expensive.”
He Experts believe that the new process of production has the potential to revolutionize the traditional assembly line of the automotive industry. But others questioned that if the process were only based on previously proven technologies, such as modular assembly, it would not necessarily reduce production costs significantly.
The American manufacturer hopes that this new way of manufacturing can reduce production costs by 50%and at the same time would allow reduce factory space by 40%. Tesla’s ultimate goal is “Manufacture more cars at a lower cost.«.
The first facility to test this new way of producing cars will be the new plant in Monterrey, Mexico. An installation that will aim to carry out the cheapest Tesla from 2024, which will force the brand to take a leap forward in all aspects to get it to do so, leaving a significant profit margin.
Several questions have been raised around this new process: What impact will Tesla’s new process have on the entire auto industry? Will they be able to make this new process work as intended and as intended?
One of the first experts to comment on this possibility was Martin French, from the consultancy Berylls, who indicated that Tesla’s new process can replace the Toyota Production System (TPS) that are decades old. «When I watched Tesla’s demo, I had the feeling that the SPT manual was air tossed and strafed.«.
For his part, Jan-Philipp Büchler, a researcher at the Free University of Dortmund in Germany, described Tesla’s new process as “revolutionary”. «It is not just about modular production. The new process eliminates previous standard steps, creating new ways of working, increasing speed and reducing complexity.«.
Tesla is still testing various aspects of the new process, including front and rear modules based on a one-piece cast base, which will be connected to a structural battery pack. Body panels are painted separately and attached at the end of the assembly process.
Some manufacturing experts believe the process has the potential to reduce or eliminate what is now common in car factoriesincluding stamping, welding and painting the unfinished bodywork before sending it to the long assembly line where the seats, engines and other accessories are installed.
Among the challenges to overcome in this process, the experts indicate, is that it will be very complicated, or almost impossible, produce multiple models of different sizes and bodies on the same manufacturing line. Which is because Tesla very aggressively breaks vehicles down into a few large modules that aren’t big enough to support custom production.
An aspect that can reduce the overall efficiency of production lines, since Tesla’s product line should become more diverse in the future with the arrival of new models.
