Tesla Motors Part 2: How Tesla Motors Builds Electric Cars
Released on 07/30/2013
Before Tesla moved in, back in October 2010,
this factory in Fremont was the home of Nummi,
which was a joint venture between
General Motors and Toyota.
It was at the time when the auto industry was struggling,
and we were able to buy this factory for relatively low
purchase price, and we decided to essentially
refurbish the factory from scratch.
I was based at SpaceX making rockets and the SpaceX
factory was really super clean, super light, super open.
When we were able to acquire the Tesla factory,
we said, okay, we need to make it similar to SpaceX.
We're going to paint the ceilings white,
the columns white.
We're going to make it bright.
Where we have the ability to have skylights,
we're going to have the light from the sky, you know,
and the psychology of that is,
if you want quality, you need people to feel at ease.
You need people to feel like this is a quality place here.
I need to make a quality product.
We constantly try to improve process efficiency.
We're utilizing automation to the fullest.
We have about 160 robots,
the latest technology you can find on the planet,
that are able to do very diverse tasks.
Robots are extremely good at repeatability,
accuracy of motion,
but humans are more intelligent than robots.
Therefore, we need to use humans where there is
a lot of value for that intelligence.
Here we're in Silicon Valley, right?
So you have wonderful universities, you know,
Stanford, Berkeley, UC Davis, you name it,
so we have a lot of talent.
We want to take full advantage of having
highly educated people help us improve the automation.
What is unique about building the Model S
as an entry vehicle, is a lot of the components
are actually very different.
Like the drive units, the battery pack,
the battery modules.
A lot of those components do not exist anywhere else,
so we need do a lot more than any other factory
that I've been at,
in terms of sub-processes inside the factory.
We do about 95% of our stamping in-house.
We do a lot of the machining in-house.
We do some coating in-house, we do painting in-house,
we do the center display in-house.
The level of integration is very, very high,
and because everything is here,
it speeds things up, greatly.
And that speed has a lot of intrinsic value
in terms of innovation, adaptability, flexibility,
all of them.
In the future, we have a lot of opportunity to
grow and bring more of this product to the market.
And so, huge potential here.
Series Trailer: How the WIRED World Works
Tesla Motors Part 1: Behind the Scenes of How the Tesla Model S is Made
Tesla Motors Part 2: How Tesla Motors Builds Electric Cars
Tesla Motors Part 3: Electric Car Quality Tests
High-Speed Robots Part 1: Meet BettyBot in "Human Exclusion Zone" Warehouses
High-Speed Robots Part 2: Kiva Robots in the Workplace & in our E-commerce Economy
Barclays Center Part 1: From Concert Venue to Basketball Arena in 8 Hours
Barclays Center Part 2: Inside on The Catwalk
Barclays Center Part 3: The Conversion Crew That Transforms the Venue for Events
NYC Eastside Access Part 1: Most Expensive Transportation Project in US History
NYC Eastside Access Part 2: Most Expensive Transportation Project in US History