Under the gun to meet production goals for Tesla’s Model 3 car, Elon Musk has developed a temporary solution all-too-common in the retail space to benefit his company.
Tesla has erected a 137K SF pop-up tent housing the general assembly line for the Model 3 beside its car factory in Fremont, California, Bloomberg reports. The pop-up factory was built over three weeks under temporary permits, some of which — like that for an overhead sprinkler system — are still pending.
On Twitter, Musk boasted about the company’s construction methods. Tesla has fallen far behind its initial production goals for the Model 3, which Musk has since blamed on faults in the Fremont factory’s automated systems.
Some manufacturing experts told Bloomberg the tent, which was made from spare parts in just three weeks, is cause for alarm.
“The chaos of how Musk is going about this makes it difficult for him to provide the standardized, repeatable work routines that allow people to function,” Lean Enterprise Institute founder James Womack said. “He’s going to need a second tent for repair and rework.”
The pop-up factory is already fully staffed by humans and will gradually integrate automation in stages. Musk pledged to produce 5,000 Model 3’s per week by the end of June, and though time is running out, he exuded confidence in the tent system on Twitter.
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