What’s the real purpose of the Teslabot?

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Abstract

?sh=2a2993f8fae2">https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensherman/2018/12/20/tesla-survived-manufacturing-hell-now-comes-the-hard-part/?sh=2a2993f8fae2</a>) as it tried to scale production of the Model 3. I think the experience has had a deep impact on all the company’s business decisions and that lens I believe may be Tesla’s real motivation for building the Teslabot: to replace human assembly line workers in their factories.Many years ago I worked in a semiconductor fab. In the fab, the different process steps were accomplished by specialized machinery from different equipment manufacturers each designed to accomplish the application of a particular process step to the silicon wafers. To build any particular IC (integrated circuit, chip) could require the wafer cassette to return to a process step multiple times as the layers of devices were being “printed” on the wafers. At the time, the individual process steps were automated at the cassette level. That is to say, once the cassette entered the particular process machine the application of the process was automatically done for all the wafers. After the machine was complete, a human would take the cassette to the next process machine, load the cassette and push buttons or other controls on that machine to start it processing the cassette. The hot issue for semiconductor fabs those days was the so-called “Islands of Automation” problem, that is, how to automate getting the cassettes around the fab without human interaction.The point of that fab story is that if there had been a humanoid robot available, then the problem could have been easily solved without requiring all the different fab equipment manufacturers to add special mechanical cassette loading pieces and special electro/computer interfaces beyond the human interface already d

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eveloped. Since the humanoid robot has the mechanical and sensors similar to a human, it presumably would have been able to match and access the pre-existing human interfaces. The humanoid robot then would accomplish the boring, “repetitive” tasks of moving cassettes from place to place, loading and pushing buttons.I’m certain that there are many different pieces of equipment and tools which comprise the Tesla assembly lines which are not manufactured from scratch by Tesla, but are purchased from outside vendors. The “human” interface to such machines and tools can be automated using the humanoid robot. Therefore, I would expect Tesla production would be improved immediately by:<ol><li>Removing humans and reducing human errors</li><li>Enabling purchase and deployment into production of machines without requiring specialized robotic interfaces. These vendor supplied machines will always include a human interface by default. As time goes on, some of these vendors will probably de-emphasize development of machine interfaces to their equipment, a process which they are usually not good at, and focus their budgets on improving their core competencies.</li><li>Increase speed of production as the small breaks between actions can be removed. Here I’m not referring to the lunch breaks or other rest breaks, but the “small” breaks in the action that humans require to relax their muscles, breath, lower their heart rate, or shift their stance etc.</li></ol>So, when Elon Musk announced prioritizing the humanoid robot product I think he was actually saying the plan for 2022 was to improve EV production possibly (my guess) by 2 or 3x and drive out labor costs significantly. The robot as a product itself is probably a side benefit to the internal improvements in manufacturing.</article></body>

What’s the real purpose of the Teslabot?

Full disclosure, I’m invested in Tesla stock, but that only indicates I have a positive economic bias for the company. (BTW, If an author were to indicate no ownership, that does not necessarily mean they had no economic bias. Their non-ownership could actually be a disingenuously real negative bias, if they owned an oil corporation or ICE vehicle stock or accepted advertising dollars from such, for example.)

In 2017, Tesla went into “Production Hell” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensherman/2018/12/20/tesla-survived-manufacturing-hell-now-comes-the-hard-part/?sh=2a2993f8fae2) as it tried to scale production of the Model 3. I think the experience has had a deep impact on all the company’s business decisions and that lens I believe may be Tesla’s real motivation for building the Teslabot: to replace human assembly line workers in their factories.

Many years ago I worked in a semiconductor fab. In the fab, the different process steps were accomplished by specialized machinery from different equipment manufacturers each designed to accomplish the application of a particular process step to the silicon wafers. To build any particular IC (integrated circuit, chip) could require the wafer cassette to return to a process step multiple times as the layers of devices were being “printed” on the wafers. At the time, the individual process steps were automated at the cassette level. That is to say, once the cassette entered the particular process machine the application of the process was automatically done for all the wafers. After the machine was complete, a human would take the cassette to the next process machine, load the cassette and push buttons or other controls on that machine to start it processing the cassette. The hot issue for semiconductor fabs those days was the so-called “Islands of Automation” problem, that is, how to automate getting the cassettes around the fab without human interaction.

The point of that fab story is that if there had been a humanoid robot available, then the problem could have been easily solved without requiring all the different fab equipment manufacturers to add special mechanical cassette loading pieces and special electro/computer interfaces beyond the human interface already developed. Since the humanoid robot has the mechanical and sensors similar to a human, it presumably would have been able to match and access the pre-existing human interfaces. The humanoid robot then would accomplish the boring, “repetitive” tasks of moving cassettes from place to place, loading and pushing buttons.

I’m certain that there are many different pieces of equipment and tools which comprise the Tesla assembly lines which are not manufactured from scratch by Tesla, but are purchased from outside vendors. The “human” interface to such machines and tools can be automated using the humanoid robot. Therefore, I would expect Tesla production would be improved immediately by:

Removing humans and reducing human errors

Enabling purchase and deployment into production of machines without requiring specialized robotic interfaces. These vendor supplied machines will always include a human interface by default. As time goes on, some of these vendors will probably de-emphasize development of machine interfaces to their equipment, a process which they are usually not good at, and focus their budgets on improving their core competencies.

Increase speed of production as the small breaks between actions can be removed. Here I’m not referring to the lunch breaks or other rest breaks, but the “small” breaks in the action that humans require to relax their muscles, breath, lower their heart rate, or shift their stance etc.

So, when Elon Musk announced prioritizing the humanoid robot product I think he was actually saying the plan for 2022 was to improve EV production possibly (my guess) by 2 or 3x and drive out labor costs significantly. The robot as a product itself is probably a side benefit to the internal improvements in manufacturing.