How And Why Elon Musk Replaced Robots With People
By Allen Foster
If you're unfamiliar, Elon Musk is one of those serial entrepreneurs who has moved increasingly into high-tech ventures such as electric cars and space travel. Reportedly, he has a net worth of $20.8 billion, and according to Forbes, he is the 53rd-richest person in the world.
Last year, Musk was quoted on CNBC saying, "What's going to happen is robots will be able to do everything better than us ... all of us ... When I say everything — the robots will be able to do everything, bar nothing."
Recently, he warned that in the future, the world will be run by an immortal AI dictator from which humans could never escape.
Still, with all his talk of the impending robot apocalypse, the co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc. boasted that Tesla was going to be the best manufacturer on earth... because of robots! Little did he realize how wrong he was going to be.
When production goals for the Model 3 electric sedan in Fremont, California, became impossible to meet because of assembly line bottlenecks and it was announced that production would shut down for an unprecedented week, others began to speculate.
"This shutdown is most likely for the purpose of ripping out all the '22nd century' fully-automated assembly systems which were going to 'revolutionize automotive manufacturing' and turned out not to work," Bob Lutz, former General Motors vice chairman, expressed via email.
Eventually, Musk acknowledged via Twitter: "Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated." Additionally, when CBS toured his facility, the CEO elaborated, admitting that the crazy, complex network of conveyor belts didn't work out, so he had to get rid of the whole thing.
Instead of relying on robots, Musk did the unthinkable: he put his faith in humans. Tesla added another shift, brought on roughly 400 additional people per week, and began around-the-clock production to accomplish what automation couldn't.
What remains to be seen is if Tesla can reach its goal of producing a staggering 10,000 cars per week by December. And, will the company show a much-needed profit in the third and fourth quarters of this year?
