The Future of Tesla Motors

 

 

Operations and productivity are essential when discussing about a business’s goods and services. Operations and productivity are the actual creation of a product, and it could make or break the company. If a business does not produce quality products and a certain number of goods, then the business could fail. This is why understanding what an operations manager does is important to finding how a business succeeds.

I found an interesting article from CNN relating to operations management and production. It deals with Tesla automobiles plan to produce a large amount of electric cars by the end of the year. Tesla is a luxury electric vehicle company that began as an independent company in 2003. This past week, for the first time in the history of the company, they produced 100 electric vehicles. This is huge for the company because in the past, they averaged on producing 10 vehicles per week. CEO Elon Musk has recently stated that by 2013 Tesla will boost production to “at least 20,000 units”. To meet that goal, Tesla will have to produce 400 vehicles per week. With these facts, the real question is “How can a very young automaker, one so meticulous in its efforts to make the perfect car, actually boost production levels at such a fast rate in the next few months and still maintain its high standards?”

The operation managers should really look at number two and three of the critical decisions, which are “managing quality” and “process and design capacity design”. It is obvious that they changed crucial components of their production because of the high amount of cars they recently produced. Granted, these cars have not been sold, so it is hard to determine its quality. According to the article, “going from producing 10 cars a week to over 400 in two quarters is quite monumental for any car company, never mind an automaker that is as young as Tesla.” It just does not seem realistic for this company to maintain its high quality by producing so many cars, so quickly.

After the class activity about producing paper origami’s, it was known that speed and quality need to be compromised. The faster the production of origami’s were being forced, the quality was greatly lessened. The same could be said for a lot of other good’s including Tesla luxury electric cars. It will be interesting to see how many electric vehicles will be produced by 2013 and if Tesla will be able to meet their goal with keeping their high quality standard.

What are your thoughts about Tesla’s historical push to produce a high rate of cars? Do you think the quality will be maintained? Will the company meet its goal? Is it good for a company to set such high goals?

 

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/17/investing/tesla-musk/index.html

9 thoughts on “The Future of Tesla Motors

  1. I believe that it is great that Tesla is going to start producing 400 Cars a week. My main concern is if there is a large market for these cars? Why the sudden idea of going from producing 10 cars a week to 400. I don’t see it being a problem with quality of the car, but I wonder if they will be able to sell all of the cars they are producing.

  2. In reading this post, I think that Tesla would, no doubt, have no problem producing that many cars per week. However, the quality of the vehicles might be compromised. In terms of the automotive industry, not many people are looking for electric cars because of the problems that arise. I think mass producing would be a bad decision because of the good chance of excess inventory. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember reading anywhere recently that Tesla cars are in high demand. However, if the technology is there and the price is good, maybe mass producing could be beneficial. I can see both sides of this story.

  3. I dont believe the two prior comments have substantial enough knowledge on Tesla and there cars, and the demand they are currently in. Fisker, a automaker who started taking 6-series BMW’s and Mercedes SL’s and rebodying them with handmade aluminum bodies, just recently came out with there fully electric luxury sedan the Karma. The waiting list on these cars is two to three years out, not only because it costs pennies a mile to run, but because the government now offers a $10,000 tax credit if you purchase one of there vehicles.

    In my opinion, Tesla is long overdue to spike there production to an acceptable amount of units that they are producing today. and keep in mind electric cars dont nearly have as many things to go wrong as per say a normal car because of the lack of actual mechanical parts in them. all of there vehicles simply have electric motors, a battery back, and modules that control it all. Tesla quality issues of heightened production is mainly in aesthetics, and with more advanced tooling aided by larger manufactures, Tesla should have no problem bringing themselves up to speed.

    Bottom Line: Tesla’s Heightened production should have no quality issues associated with it. I believe they aren’t making any compromises and are truly expanding there company at a very rapid rate per demand. There Operations Management should have no problem fully supporting there production because the electric technology in Teslas vehicles have proved reliable for the past 5 or so years, and there quality standards for aesthetics is based off of Lotus Parts.

  4. I find it interesting that Tesla will expand its production. Tesla should not have any issues because they have been in business for a while so at this point there would not be a lot of trial and error in their production process. They would really just be mass producing a prototype.

  5. When a company decides to mass produce something, usually they have found a cost effective way to do that. Telsa is a great up and coming company and I strongly believe they wouldn’t comprise the quality of their electric cars in order to mass produce them. I am extremely happy to know they will be trying to produce up to 400 cars a week. A couple of years ago, you had to pre-order these cars because they were produced at such a high cost they were limited to producing 2-3 a year. There must be an increase in demand in these types of cars, otherwise, I don’t believe Tesla would have the means for production. An increase in demand is followed by an increase in supply and when those two factors meet on the graph, the price of the car is adjusted. I assume with mass production the price for this car will decrease. My goal is to establish a fortune 500 company and then own one of these vehicles.

  6. I am a huge fan of tesla, but what they are planning to do with their production is going to cause trouble for their company. In you blog post you mainly focus on the quality of the product, but i think tesla should first consider if there is such a great demand for electric cars that they need to increase their production so drastically. Teslas low production makes their product very rare, combine uniqueness and good quality, and you will have product that you can charge a lot of money for. I do not think that increasing their production is such a good idea, at least not in the amount that they are planing.

  7. Given the fact that the different models Tesla offers are on the high-end electric car market ($50k-100k), they are expected to deliver quality. If they are confident enough to make a jump to producing 400 cars per week, they must have a great operations strategy that allows them to produce a high volume efficiently. As well, since they have specialized in electric motor technology for almost a decade in Silicon Valley, the Mecca of technological advancement, Tesla should have a tight grip on their product. Barring any issue that would result in a recall, Tesla’s luxury brand will not leave their customers hanging in the wind if problems do arise due to producing their vehicles too quickly; although their reputation makes would make that a doubtful outcome.

  8. It seems as though Tesla has found a good reason to expanding their production most likely due to a higher demand for electric cars. As far as changing the quantity of cars produced per week so drastically I don’t see the quality going down, seeing that most cars are produced by machines and are usually overseen by inspectors for any malfunctions or defects. There might be more of an issue with manufacturing space available. Did they build more manufacturing plants to build this many cars? Overall I think the quality won’t be compromised as long as management oversees all operations thoroughly so that they can achieve their overall goal.

  9. The new tesla model is a great moment for the electric car market, by creating a car that shows consumers what the future can hold for fully electric cars. I agree with f1211jalbarran when he questioned if consumers would purchase that high of production. Starting at roughly$45,000, this is one of the most expensive electric cars on the market. This means that the 40,000 units they are projecting to sell, will be directed at the higher to middle upper class consumer. I believe that Tesla has effectivley managed a high quality product, and a good example of that being true is based on them selling out of their first roadster model, showing that the demand is there. the test is really whether or not the quality stays consistent while the production process changes. I think the car will be better than the roadster and will really start a trent for other motor companies to create similar products and hopefully drive the price of the cars down, for a more reasonable alternative to gas guzzling sports cars.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *