Tesla Idling Model 3 Production to Improve Manufacturing Process
Today, assembly lines producing the Tesla Model 3 at the company’s California manufacturing facility halted. The production pause will last four to five days, Buzzfeed News first reported on Monday.
A Tesla statement said the production idle comes as the carmaker works to “improve automation and systematically address bottlenecks in order to increase production rates.” Tesla’s goal is to produce 5,000 Model 3s per week by the end of Q2 2018. At the end of March, the factory churned out just over 2,000 cars a week. Previously, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk said the automaker would be building 5,000 cars per week by December 2017.
Musk most recently said he underestimated the need for human workers at the facility, which clashes with the automation explanation given for the recent production shut down. In a Tweet, Musk declared, “excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.”
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Tesla has faced serious “production hell,” per Musk since the Model 3 began rolling down the assembly line. The CEO is reportedly once again sleeping at the manufacturing facility to help run the operation more efficiently and improve the production line.
In addition to the production issues, the National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating a fatal crash involving a Model X. The driver allegedly was operating the Model X in AutoPilot when it struck a concrete barrier. He later died in hospital.
A version of this story originally appeared on Hybrid Cars.
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