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Tesla's Paint Shop Upgrade

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I recall Elon saying that Tesla would be spending a lot of money on upgrading the paint process and make it the most advanced in the world. After that, I haven't heard anything since. Has anything been said about the ETA of the upgrade and what they are they going to do differently?
 
During last Q2 earnings call. "During the call, Musk said in the first quarter next year a new body assembly line will be installed in the plant. The company will also significantly upgrade the Fremont plant’s paint shop to become “the most advanced automotive paint shop in the world,” he said.http://www.autonews.com/article/201...ss-widens-to-$62-million-as-r&d-expenses-soar

I seem to remember that there would be an future expense of ~100 million. Wondering if anyone else heard of any news concerning these paint shop upgrades.
 
I'm surprised there has been no new info on this topic. I again listened to parts of last Q2's conf call and Elon definitely said that the paint shop will be the most advanced in the world but did not specify an exact date. Will this mean new colors? Or will it improve on the MS's paint job of having a reputation of being "soft".
 
I'm surprised there has been no new info on this topic. I again listened to parts of last Q2's conf call and Elon definitely said that the paint shop will be the most advanced in the world but did not specify an exact date. Will this mean new colors? Or will it improve on the MS's paint job of having a reputation of being "soft".

The "soft" paint is the nature of a water based paint. They're using that because of the VOC rules in California. I think to have harder paint they'd have to get away from the water based paint. If there's a solvent based paint that can still meet the rules they could do so. I have no idea if such a paint exists or if it would be cost effective for them to switch. I'm skeptical that they would do this.
 
I know from a work associate that the first of 2000 containers for the new Tesla production line just arrived two weeks ago. Not sure if that new production line includes a new paint shop, but I did hear it will allow Tesla to double the production of the original line.
 
Didn't they just shut down for an addition from one production line to two? This is for a third?

No. Tesla never created a second assembly line(nwm body shop or paint shop or stamping etc). Tesla shut down assembly to reconfigure it for roughly 2x production rate. In some parts of the assembly line it meant doubling the stations for a given tic tac time(essentially 2 stations work in parallel). On most stations that meant doubling number of stations in sequence so each one perform operation in half time than previously designed.

So essentially Tesla haven't created second assembly line, but Tesla made an output of existing line theoretically to double. Partly thanx to parallel operations.
 
When I listened to the Q2 call again, it was interesting that Elon specifically mentioned how the paint shop will become the most advanced in the world. Does Tesla think that the paint is not up to par with merc/audi etc atm? There has been a few posts about how on some deliveries the paint has been sub-par, maybe a paint shop upgrade will address those issues. It is interesting though that since the Q2 call nothing has been said about the paint shop.
 
When I listened to the Q2 call again, it was interesting that Elon specifically mentioned how the paint shop will become the most advanced in the world. Does Tesla think that the paint is not up to par with merc/audi etc atm? There has been a few posts about how on some deliveries the paint has been sub-par, maybe a paint shop upgrade will address those issues. It is interesting though that since the Q2 call nothing has been said about the paint shop.

I don't know about the paint quality, but I certainly think the color choices available are inferior to BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche.

I am not sure if this is a matter of limitations of the paint shop, or Tesla just having different tastes in colors.
 
From the Q3 Shareholder letter:
For example, our Model X body center will initially be independent from our Model S body center, allowing us to start building Model X bodies without impacting Model S production. We have started to upgrade our second paint shop with state of the art paint application technology and a level of automation that will also have the capacity to cover Model 3 needs.
 
"We have started to upgrade our second paint shop with state of the art paint application technology" Hmm, I wonder what improvements were made in comparison to the current paint tech. With the removal of brown and green, hopefully they'll be room for at least one color addition in the future.
 
It seems when Elon describes an upgrade its either outright better or its more efficient and faster or both. But I do remember Musk saying one of the bottlenecks in production was the wait time at the paint stage so maybe this is what the new paint shop is all about.
 
I wish the individual/unlimited color option is true. However with the brown/green removal, seems Tesla believes less is more and I doubt they will add colors unless they are sure it is popular.

Can Tesla improve on the perceived "softness" of the paint/clear coat? Or is that just something that can't be changed b/c the paint is water based?