Bokonon
Title-customizing Member
So I wonder... What if a Tesla employee wants a base model? Are they in front of everyone still, or just in front of the base model public? Hmmm....
Historically, at the beginning of a new model release, hasn't Tesla configured all manufacturing lines dedicated to that model to produce one particular base configuration (usually a particular battery size and motor(s)), and then filled all reservations with that same base configuration before moving down to the "next most-optioned" configuration? (I am thinking just from a U.S. delivery standpoint here, not taking into account overseas markets that may or may not be RHD.)
If so, I'd expect that they'd do something similar with the Model 3, and prioritize Tesla employees, owners, etc. within each manufacturing configuration. In other words, there would be four "waves" of production:
Wave #1: PXXD (employees, S/X owners, non-owners)
Wave #2: XXD (employees, S/X owners, non-owners)
Wave #3: xxD (employees, S/X owners, non-owners)
Wave #4: xx (employees, S/X owners, non-owners)
Again, speaking only about U.S. deliveries, it's unclear to me whether delivery region (e.g. east coast vs. west coast) would supersede a given manufacturing configuration, or vice-versa. I would imagine that if retooling a line is expensive in terms of cost and downtime, they would completely flush the ordering queue for each base configuration before moving onto the next... but I trust their production chiefs know a lot more about this than I do.
In any case, I totally agree with this:
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