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[–]Tom_Bombadil 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This doesn't surprise me at all.
I was the director of quality assurance at a tier 1 supplier for Tesla. The model s was preparing for production at the Fremont plant (ironically near the Tesla coil at Fry's). Toyota was leasing space to Tesla in NUMMI and also wanted to design a rav4 with the Tesla battery pack.

The dept heads of the critical component suppliers were summoned to NUMMI for an emergency meeting. Tesla's PPAP, PFMEA, DFMEA, and control plan component prep was virtually non-existent. Toyota was FURIOUS! LIVID.

I was probably the youngest person in the room, so I hadn't been to a meeting that involved a customer, and their customer. Terrible idea. The gloves were off, and the Tesla guys got dressed down from both sides! But they took it like pros. It was 3 days of cringing.

On the last day all of the suppliers got to test ride (not drive :-/) in the top performing model S on the banked race track. It was great. I think I've already mentioned this story in a previous post.

They also had a Rav4 ready; as if anyone who wanted to ride in that. By a show of hands the Tesla crew asked "who wants to ride in the model s?". -Everyone. "Who wants to ride in the Rav4?". -Silence. After a couple of seconds the Toyota/Lexus team world raised their hands, and everyone else laughed. It was great.

Edit: PPAP detail. Plus, Musk showed up to the meeting kickoff, and gave a fairly disinterested milk-toast address about team work, and partnership, etc. Not that impressive. He gave me a model s poster, which I still have. Having say through the preproduction meetings; I definitely wouldn't have wanted a first-year model. I'm still surprised they haven't been more model s quality probs.