Tesla: The Prestige?
Courtesy of The Nattering Naybob
The Prestige is a 2006 thriller drama film from Christopher Priest's 1995 World Fantasy Award-winning novel of the same name. The story follows Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), rival stage magicians in London at the end of the 19th century. Borden leads Angier to believe that he uses an invention of scientist Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) for his trick, an invention that actually teleports Borden across the stage. Both magicians share a most yummy assistant in common Olivia (Scarlett Johansson). Obsessed with creating the best stage illusion, they engage in competitive one-upmanship with tragic results.
Production Rampup?
A friend asked about Tesla's (NASDAQ:TSLA) production capability. The Fremont ex GM/Toyota Nuumi plant is currently tooled to produce 150K units per year. That doesn't mean they can or will hit that production level. Factory capacity is more than tooling capacity, which is more than actual production.
There are two lines, the old line is being used for one offs and prototypes, the new line has seen substantial upgrading from the old line. On the new line: each eight-hour shift has a rated capacity of 1,000 cars per week; 3 shifts = 3,000 cars per week x 50 weeks = 150K MAX. Two shifts = 100K. Single shift 50K.
Now if Tesla wants to install another line, and have the space and employees, they can invest in a new line (est. $250M) and double the rated capacity to 300K at full throttle. Or Tesla can start humping the old line and pay an efficiency premium. Tesla has many other issues to deal with to add a line and achieve a 300K number, much less running full tilt boogey with one line to hit 150K.
My friend commented: "Well, if they need two more shifts then they need 2x more workers so that's hurdle #1. Hiring, training, etc. I never said it wasn't possible to build 150,000 cars a year – I'm simply pointing out that they are, at their current size, producing 50,000 cars and the rest is logic. Meanwhile, it scares me for you to say they can add another line for $300M when they've burned through Billions already – what the Hell did they spend it on?"
Expansion Efforts?
Yes, Tesla are on single shift 5 days – 10 hours – 50 hours per week, that's how they can do 50K at Fremont without the two weekend days. Tesla literally inherited $17M of circa 2006-2010 Nummi assembly line equipment for pennies on the dollar, of which the reusable portion was incorporated into the first line. By current standards, that serpentine line is now inefficient, hence dedication to one off and prototypes. The new high-speed second line went online circa Aug 2014 and cost an estimated $200M.
Early to mid 2015 Tesla added a parallel second body line (where the S and X unibody gets welded – bonded – together and is then sent to the assembly line). That second body line is claimed to be capable of 25,00 per week at a lower cost point. Tesla also upgraded the paint shop to accommodate the overall higher production capacity.
