SpaceX Helped Speed Up Tesla Car Production, Elon Musk Said

At this point, it’s no secret that Tesla has had a history of missing deadlines when it came to car production and delivery. This has become less of a problem recently and production of the Model 3 actually seems like it’s on schedule. In a recent earnings call, CEO Elon Musk revealed that Tesla actually got quite a bit of help from SpaceX, which sped up production.

During the call, it would appear that investors brought up the possibility of SpaceX technology being used by Tesla for any benefit and Musk shared an instance when one of the rocket company’s gadgets shaved a few hours off of the production of every vehicle. Eight hours, in fact, so it’s not an insignificant amount of time. Tesla Global Sales and Services President, Jon McNeill elaborated on the matter.

“We had a challenge in service just over the past week where we needed to determine the quality of an object deep within our structure, an aluminum casting. That’s something that SpaceX knows how to do,” McNeill explained. “Our team reached out to the SpaceX team, the SpaceX team provided us with some ultrasonic sensors so we could quickly take corrective action.”

As Futurism notes, this is one of the biggest perks of running two of the most technologically advanced companies in the world. Musk and his team can basically reach out to one side or the other to get the assistance they need if they encounter a particular problem. If Tesla had to borrow the sensors or technology of another company, it would either involve license payments or a lot of backroom deals.

“This cross-fertilization of knowledge from the rocket and spacecraft industry to auto and back and forth I think has really been quite valuable,” Musk explained during the call, adding that “high-volume manufacturing of something that has to be extremely reliable.”