Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory is manufacturing products and managed in strict compliance with laws and regulations, and there is no such thing as "lowering the quality for production," the company said today.
Tesla is responding to previous media reports that it is trying to increase sales in China and that bad parts are being loaded onto cars.
The company was quoted by Chinanews.com as saying that Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory places a high priority on product quality and safety and was designed from the outset to be built in accordance with Tesla's requirements for the most advanced factories worldwide.
The Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory and its products have been reviewed by Chinese laws and regulations and meet certification requirements, the company said.
In an investigative report published on Friday, Chinese media Pingwest mentioned that Tesla is doing whatever it can to lower quality standards in order to boost production and sales in China, and that bad parts are likely to be loaded onto cars.
In addition to the parts chaos, some suppliers said that the huge production pressure was overwhelming suppliers, according to the report. And when production requirements reach a critical point, suppliers' solution is simple, which is to bring faulty parts, or even inferior products, directly to use.
The report said that even some Tesla engineers lamented that although the appearance looks all Tesla, the difference in quality control is not insignificant, "this (Shanghai factory) car is another car altogether, it is simply a defective product".
In response to the above report, on December 26, Grace Tao, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, responded, "Our legal affairs is already preparing to sue Pingwest, and we believe they will take responsibility for the impact of his words and actions."
The Chinanews.com report quoted Tesla sources as saying that the factory is highly automated and electronically managed, with the MOS system enabling precise traceability of parts by vehicle VIN number query for a manufacturer, part number, and lot information.
Key process parameters and quality control results in the production process can be queried in the MOS system and support the traceability needs of the entire life cycle of the product, with data kept for more than 10 years, "including what angle each worker screws the screws to, the specific number of turns and strength are recorded."
Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory production vehicles also supply European exports, and China sales vehicles from the same production line, and using the same parts, the same suppliers, the same workers in accordance with the same standards of production, Tesla sources said.
Tesla also said that the Tesla stamping workshop uses a 100% automated, fully enclosed press, and the painting workshop has a 100% automation rate for painting, with only some manual inspection and surface treatment positions. The body shop automation rate exceeds 90%, including welding, riveting, stud welding process automation rate of 100%, production line workers only undertake a small number of simple assembly and loading and unloading, quality inspection and other work.
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