Elon Musk’s week just got worse as Tesla’s share tumble after CNBC reports the problems with battery production at the company’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, are worse than the company has acknowledged and could cause further delays and quality issues for the new Model 3, according to a number of current and former Tesla employees.
These problems include Tesla needing to make some of the batteries by hand and borrowing scores of employees from one of its suppliers to help with this manual assembly, said these people.
The reaction was instant and lower…
CNBC goes to report that more than a month after Musk’s initial warnings, in mid-December, Tesla was still making its Model 3 batteries partly by hand, according to current engineers and ex-Tesla employees who worked at the Gigafactory in recent months.
They say Tesla had to “borrow” scores of employees from Panasonic, which is a partner in the Gigafactory and supplies lithium-ion battery cells, to help with this manual assembly.
A Tesla spokesperson told CNBC, “Until we reach full production, by definition some elements of the production process will be more manual. This is something Elon and [CTO] JB [Strausel] discussed extensively on our Q3 earnings call, and it has no impact on the quality or safety of the batteries we’re producing.”
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