02-27-2023, 01:47 PM
When the Model 3 was released Tesla struggled with the stuff that their competitors already figured out. On the other hand, Tesla excelled at the stuff their competitors struggled with. They designed the entire vehicle to be an open platform. They controlled the code on all the modules and could reconfigure them at will. This allowed them to recode the basic operation of subsystems with software updates delivered over the air. Competitors in contrast received preconfigured modules from suppliers and they had no idea how they worked. When it came to actually assembling the cars though, Tesla struggled. There were hundreds of different people employing dozens of different processes that may or may not have been complimentary to each other. The big difference is the process that Tesla developed for deploying production changes in-line. They make more revisions in a day than their competitors do in a month, or more. Tesla doesn’t have “model” years like competitors do. The car made on Monday may vary significantly from the product made on Thursday if someone found a better, cheaper way to do it. This drives costs down significantly and quickly while pushing margins up dramatically.