Model X tidbits from the earnings call

[umeshunni]

Various tidbits about the Model X from today's earnings call, nothing particularly interesting beyond the scaling down of the 1000 X/week target to something like 800 X/week:

The Model S and X I think are generally regarded by very critical judges as technologically the most advanced cars in the world. And so I think they've done well in that respect.
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I've seen Model X production increase by a factor of five from Q4 to Q1, and we continue to make huge strides in volume and quality of the vehicle. And I'm personally spending an enormous amount of time on the production line. My desk is at the end of the production line. I have a sleeping bag in a conference room adjacent to the production line, which I use quite frequently. The whole team is super-focused on achieving rate and quality at the target cost. So I felt very confident in us achieving that goal.
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So with the Model 3 [..] we're really trying to take a lot of lessons learned from Model X, where [..] we put a lot of bells and whistles on Model X and a lot of advanced technologies that weren't necessary for version one of the vehicle.
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[..] X was basically built off of the S platform, but then even more complicated, so unfortunately even harder to make.
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[..] I feel confident that we're going to hit the 2,000 vehicle a week target by the end of this quarter, of which on the order of 40% are X. I'm just telling you that's our internal plan and what we expect to meet. There's no question the X is a very difficult car to manufacture. I think it's unquestionably actually the most difficult car to manufacture in the world, and Bob Lutz would agree with that. I think he said something to the effect that he thought it wasn't manufacturable or something like that. I mean, it's still manufacturable. It's just a hard thing to go for.

So, I mean, we have some internal milestones that I think we've achieved thus far that I'm pretty excited about. Friday at 3 a.m. we achieved our first flawless production of the Model X, where we went through the whole production process and had zero issues. That was a great milestone. Still celebrating with the 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Friday. It was great. And now we are starting to get several in a row that are sort of (57:07) and so it's really gaining momentum very quickly. We feel pretty good about the trajectory of S and X.

 

[Roentgen]

The bit about the Model 3 makes me a bit uneasy about my reservation - I mean, of course the first iteration won't have as many bells and whistles as future models, but will they purposefully keep planned features off until they get the 3 production streamlined?

 

[Marcos]

The 3 will be fairly barebones relative to the S and X, that much is crystal clear. The door handles are not motorized, there is no dash display, I wouldn't expect biodefense mode, etc. On the other hand, it'll have auto-pilot hardware, be electric, an be super fast, so it'll still have the stuff that really matters.

Given the problems I've had in keeping my front driver-side door and window calibrated, I think that's the one thing that I'd have Tesla simplify if they could do it again. People can open their own damn doors thank you very much. But the auto-present is pretty cool when it's working properly. So I have a hard time faulting Tesla. But really, an expensive car whose doors won't open? It's ridiculous and embarrassing when it happens. I'd actually prefer the 3's manual doors.

But they've clearly learned their lesson. I'm sure Tesla isn't happy with having to constantly service several thousand Xs. They cannot repeat that sort of trajectory with the 3. It has to be flawless off the line, from day 1, and the best way to do that is to start with the essentials, and gradually add the bells and whistles over time (like they're now doing with the S).

I also have a 3 on order, and they better have learned their lessons from the X rollout.