From “Production Hell” To “Delivery Hell” — Tesla Model 3 Challenges Continue

For the first part of this year, Tesla struggled to ramp up production of its Model 3 electric sedan for the masses. Elon Musk himself has said as much in the starkest of terms — a testament to his honesty unless you consider him one of the master masterful evil manipulators of public opinion in modern history. Now that Tesla has apparently gotten a handle on the production side of  things, it is finding delivering all the cars it has built to new owners is a separate kind of headache. Keep in mind that Tesla has relatively few stores compared to the hundreds of car dealers legacy automakers have available to them.

Megan Gale, a Model 3 customer in Utah, tweeted to Elon Musk this week that her car is sitting in a rail yard in Salt Lake City while the company keeps pushing back her scheduled delivery date. “Please make this right!” she implores Musk.

For Tesla, every day is a trip into terra incognita. Whether its creating a supply chain, calibrating an assembly line, or creating self-driving software, Tesla is boldly going where no company has gone before every step of the way. In some respects, it is a victim of its own success.

Sell cars direct to customers over the internet? That’s crazy talk. Can’t be done. Never happened. Build an SUV with falcon-wing doors? No way, José. Only a lunatic would pull a stunt like that. That’s literally impossible. Put a production line outside in the parking lot inside a tent? That is way over the line, Elon. Yet, somehow, the company has faced the challenges and overcome them — not always as early as hoped, but they got there in the end.

As Elon says, delivering cars is not nearly as hard as building them — or making cars that drive themselves. You won’t see Elon in a sleeping bag at a Tesla store trying to speed the process up anytime soon. He’ll figure this out pdq.

Tesla Haters Strike

CleanTechnica chief editor Zachary Shahan writes regularly about Tesla haters in the investment community, and we’ve also published about the threatened souls in oil & auto who may be funding anti-Tesla troll armies. Certainly, there are plenty of people who would love to see the company fail. But the level of antipathy in the community has reached a new level, with malicious destruction of Tesla vehicles becoming a thing. Recently, a photograph surfaced on a Canadian Model 3 Facebook page that demonstrates just how threatened some people feel about Tesla and its products.

Naturally, Elon heard about this incident and had a response.

Presumably, the dash cam will allow the car to film the assailant in the act so that local authorities can apprehend and prosecute the misguided miscreant. Version 9 firmware is scheduled to be introduced shortly.