"McNeill said Tesla was a "learning sponge," McNeill, who was at the EV company between 2015 and 2018, said. During his tenure, Model 3 was in its infamous "production hell," and Tesla had just teased the first image of the Model Y. The former Tesla executive said one lesson learned from Chinese EVs was the reuse of parts - using some of the same guts of one model for another - and that can be seen "across the 3 and the Y.""
"McNeill didn't name which Chinese EVs Tesla tore down during his tenure, but said he's recently seen BYD, the leading EV maker in China, take the technique of reusing parts to another level at a teardown with GM. "The Chinese engineers are really disciplined about reusing parts underneath the hood that the customer can't see, and they save a lot of money that way," he said."
Automakers routinely tear down competitors' vehicles to learn engineering and cost-saving techniques. Tesla conducted teardowns of Chinese EVs and incorporated lessons into popular models such as the Model 3 and Model Y. One key lesson was aggressive parts reuse, sharing many components between models to reduce costs and accelerate production. The Model Y reportedly shares about three-quarters of its parts with the Model 3, aiding production ramp-up. BYD exemplifies deeper reuse discipline, reusing unseen under-hood components to achieve further savings. Parts reuse includes components customers do not see, while the broader industry has long reused items like steering wheels and turn-signal stalks.
Read at Business Insider
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