Reference no: EM132097669
On March 31, 2016, Tesla Motors announced the release of its new Model 3 electric car. Over 276,000 people from around the world put down $1000 reservations for the vehicle within three days. First deliveries of the vehicle are expected in late 2017. The innovative new car is a follow-up to the much more expensive Model S and Model X cars. Tesla delivered about 110,000 of these cars before the Model 3 announcement. Elon Musk, the CEO of the company, has said that he has confidence that the company can sell 5000,000 cars a year by 2020. Given the interest was shown in the Model 3 announcement, some experts think this might be possible. The fledging Palo Alto, California, the automaker has struggled with ramping up manufacturing, particularly with the Model X sport utility vehicle introduced in 2015. The company reported that there were many sourcing changes made late in the process of planning production. Tesla tends to make items, such as the middles seats in the Model X, in-house rather than outsourcing them, which is done by many car manufacturers. The issues associated with the production of the cars are a complex combination of mechanical and computer software problems. Popular features of the cars include driving assist auto-pilot, auto-parallel parking, and auto-braking. The cars even have an auto summons feature that lets a driver park and retrieve their car with nobody inside. Many post-production issues have been addressed through software updates downloaded to customers over wireless connections. Owners have complained that the Model X falcon-wing doors will not open. When owners have problems like this, Tesla scheduled a time to pick the car up for repair, and a loaner is left with the customer. Another recent issue was a latch on the third-row seat that could come undone during a collision. Tesla recalled 2,700 Model X cars to replace the latches with a new design. The recall overloaded Tesla's service outlets which caused waits of up to two weeks to make the repairs. Some customers were offered rental cars due to the long wait. So far customers expect the "white glove" treatment that Tesla currently offers, but the concern is what will Tesla do when there are hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road. Mr. Musk's Tesla cars have many loyal customers even though problems have been encountered. Moving from tens of thousands of vehicles to hundreds of thousands may be difficult unless some major service improvements are made. Put yourself in the position of a manager at Tesla responsible for quality and customer satisfaction.
Answer the following question:
What other suggestions would you have for Tesla relative to ensuring the quality of their Model X sport utility vehicle?