HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

There are some on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVCCroN7vS0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM

And one with more than just factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA18tusTgE4

⬐ 1024core

The first 2 videos are from 2015 and 2013, respectively. I'm guessing things have changed a bit since then?

⬐ izacus

Tesla S didn't really change since then, why do you expect a huge manufacturing plant to change drastically? It's not like you just throw all robots and conveyor belts in a bin like an iPhone. Car industry is on significantly longer cycles.

⬐ niyazpk

Elon said[1] in the shareholder meeting that the Model S has changed significantly from the older versions. I don't know the differences myself, so take it FWIW.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/shareholdermeeting at around 01:16:00

I agree. and it's not just transportation, or even taxes, it's also the cost of labor. iphones are assembled in china because chinese workers are cheaper than automating those particular jobs. cars, on the other hand, are almost entirely made by robots these days.[1] there's not as big a price difference between chinese and american robots as there is between chinese and american humans.

apple has a history of entering fairly high-margin markets where the existing products don't look or feel or function very well, and then they give it the jony ive treatment. but tesla is already there, they applied apple's playbook to cars and honestly took much bigger risks to get there than apple ever would. tesla took on a LOT of debt to be competitive, and it'll be a while before they even have profit, much less good margins. it'd be very hard for apple to compete. if apple ever enters the car market, a tesla acquisition is the only thing that would make sense to me.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM

I just saw this video from 4 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM

Does somebody know if there's a more recent one? It looked impressive even it's age.

Does this take into account the heavy use of robotics that Tesla has integrated? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM

⬐ icefox

One of the more interesting things about factories is that a facility that has a robots doesn't guarantee high throughput. If the robot can work 10 times faster than the rest of the line does that mean it is mostly idle or does it work on multiple lines or do you have a wip queue somewhere and then you have more work moving stuff from the robot to inventory etc and lastly the great thing about humans over robots is that we are much more flexible and can try new things sooner to see if they work better. I wouldn't be surprised if there are stories of factories that got robots and their metrics went down.

⬐ lutusp

This is a great video. And the narrator's comments about it being the wave of the future aren't exaggerated in the least. The use of robots greatly improves the rate of manufacture as well as assuring consistent quality.

It's hard to be discouraged about American business when watching a video like this.