Elon Musk has been at the heart of promoting various companies throughout the 21st century, with two of his most prominent companies anchored in the notion of mass production. In the case of his infamous clunky and angular Tesla Cybertruck, he encountered several difficulties in bringing the prototype to market.
“The manufacturing is somewhere between a hundred and a thousand times harder than making a prototype… I really cannot emphasize enough how hard production is relative to design… It is trivial really to churn out prototypes, and it is extremely difficult to build a factory.”
Planting the seed
Musk was speaking about the rigors of bringing the Cybertruck to life during an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast.
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Rogan asked how far away Musk was from delivering the vehicle to people, with Musk revealing at the time that the timing was about a month away.
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But the prototype was initially unveiled in November 2019. Explaining the delay, the Tesla CEO hinted that the process of manufacturing the vehicle proved much harder than expected given the need for consistency in producing each model.
Rinse and repeat
There’s an element of common sense in buying into the idea that making a prototype is much easier than mass-producing a finished version of that product.
Not only is there a much lower tolerance for error, but establishing the supply chain for materials, components, and resources is far more complex. Then there’s the economics of it all – ensuring that the cost to produce one vehicle can, at least, be recouped by a customer should there even be a willingness to pay for it.
It’s reminiscent of the “production hell” phrasing that Musk has also frequently deployed through the years – especially during a manufacturing crisis between 2017 and 2018. During this time, the Tesla production line became a futuristic and automated process known as the “alien dreadnought” – but this robotic network eventually slowed down manufacturing and prevented Tesla vehicles from being ready on time.
