The placement and fixing of the heavy dash assembly into the car is a great example. There is a strong case for using robots where lifting, placing, and bolting parts might result in repetitive strain injuries. In this picture, you can see the bottom “skateboard” of a car and a Model 3 body moving toward a location above it where the two will be married. Location of the Tesla Model 3 “marriage,” where the lower battery and motor assembly is mounted to the vehicle body. When it comes to working with fabrics, belts, wires, and the like, humans are better. Generally speaking, Tesla found that machines are great at working with parts that are always the same size and in the same place, like metal, bolts, batteries, battery packs, hard plastics, and such. ![]() human effort had clearly been worked out as Tesla sought to make the assembly process not only faster and more predictable, but also more friendly for humans. In the Model 3 General Assembly lines, the balance of automation vs. Hundreds of parts and sub-assemblies are bolted onto and into the vehicles as they move down a linear production line that has been selectively automated to eliminate ergonomically incorrect tasks and the need to lift heavy or awkward parts, or simply to speed up the process. That includes the wiring, carpet, dash, monitor, center console, seats, and the like. General Assembly is where the painted body of the car comes to get all the fun stuff that humans actually interact with. Hopping on an electric cart, we zipped over to the General Assembly for Model 3 and took a few minutes to look at the Model S assembly lines.Ī Tesla Model S getting its battery. Team CleanTechnica donned our personal protective equipment and headed into the factory proper, where we were quickly greeted with the familiar sounds of forklifts, conveyors, and motors, punctuated by the occasional pop of a weld from the nearby body shop. Recognizing the vast thirst for coffee across the company, Tesla even has its own coffee roast, which is rumored to still available from some of the caffeination stations buried in the depths of the factory. ![]() The office looked clean and well branded, with a thick dose of coffee punctuating the otherwise stale office smell. It was just a bunch of people working their tails off to move the business forward - designing vehicles, building out secretive new Autopilot hardware chipsets, and patching together the latest Autopilot release. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of Willy Wonka’s oompa loompas running around, or magical unicorns farting out showers of 2170 batteries. There was also the usual assortment of huddle rooms and conference rooms. Upon entering the factory, we found ourselves in an open-concept office space, with random single-person working pods referencing Harry Potter, like the “Chamber of Secrets,” along the sides. Tesla’s Fremont, California, automotive factory.
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