Elon Musk considers crowdsourcing Tesla manufacturing by having owners ‘help build’ cars

Sorry for the clickbaity (yet somewhat still accurate) headline, but I couldn’t resist with the current hysteria around Tesla’s Model 3 production ramp up and the shorts/naysayers trying to turn anything into something negative.

That said, Elon Musk is actually thinking of having owners build parts of Tesla vehicles, but it’s for the experience – not to actually ramp up production.

Tesla offers tours of its Fremont factory to vehicle owners and friends.

Having been on the tour, it’s a fairly impressive experience to see the massive plant that turns sheets of metal into a fully working vehicle in a matter of hours.

Now Musk is considering the idea of bringing it to a whole new level by potentially giving the people going on tours the option to “help build part of a car”.

He responded with this idea on twitter in response to a comment from a Tesla employee who saw Musk helping build cars himself on the production line:

Was thinking of offering an extended Tesla factory tour option where you could help build part of a car & understand how they come together. I know it would have been super fun for me when I was a kid (or now).

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 22, 2018

I suggested that instead of building any car, it would be more fun for tour-goers, who are mostly Tesla owners, to help build a part of their own car.

Musk said that it would be difficult, but it sounds like he is considering:

That would be tricky to sequence, but maybe

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 22, 2018

It would indeed be more difficult because you need to time your visit with your vehicle going into the specific part of the production line where it makes sense to let inexperienced people help to work on the car.

Musk has often talked about turning Tesla’s projects into almost tourism attractions.

In 2016, Tesla unsuccessfully tried to push for a bill dubbed the ‘Tesla Tourism’ bill that would have been easier for out-of-state buyers to come pick up their cars at the factory in California.

The goal was to have people pay the tax in their home state instead of the often more expensive California tax and take a tour of the factory and have a California road trip before bringing their new car back home.

Musk has also mentioned opening up Gigafactory 1 to tours and even Tesla’s giant battery system in Australia.