First the Fast & Furious 9 release date gets pushed back to 2020 — and now this. If you are waiting breathlessly to see the Tesla Semi truck in the flesh, the wait just got longer. And if you are waiting for your Model 3 to arrive, let’s just say it may be a really l-o-n-g wait.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced another setback from “production hell.”
“Tesla Semi unveil now Nov 16,” he announced via Twitter on Friday.
Basically, what Musk is facing is a traffic jam. Fixing the Model 3 is holding up the Semi. And his efforts to supply battery power to hurricane victims are also slowing things down.
As he noted on Twitter: “Diverting resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks & increase battery production for Puerto Rico & other affected areas.”
Tesla Semi unveil now Nov 16. Diverting resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks & increase battery production for Puerto Rico & other affected areas.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2017
Supplying battery power for Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria knocked out all of its power is commendable. And since Mercedes-Benz and Cummins already beat Tesla to the punch by showing off their new all-electric trucks, what’s the rush really?
The real news is the “production bottlenecks” that have limited the number of Model 3s that have been made — only 260 instead of the 1,500 that were promised.
According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, part of the problem stems from the fact that “major portions of the Model 3 were still being banged out by hand, away from the automated production line” as recently as last month.
And it gets even worse.
“In place of the robots…you’ve got two associates lining up with a big, old spot welder hanging from the ceiling by a chain, and you’ve got one associate kind of like balancing it and trying to get the welder in position, and you’ve got another welder with his arm guiding it,” the paper reported, adding: “Sparks go flying.”
No wonder those employees want a union. But, still, things aren’t all bad for Musk.
SpaceX Mars plans are on target and the company’s BFR (Big F… Rockets) will be able to take us anywhere on Earth in less than 60 minutes—someday. And who’ll need electric cars and trucks when we have interplanetary rockets?
Until then, we’ll just have to wait a little more.
Source: Elon Musk via Twitter
