Tesla's latest move on the shop floor is causing quite a stir in the industry. To adhere to their lofty production goals, the company is skipping the soft tooling stage and jumping straight into the production tooling stage for their Model 3 automobiles.
Most automobile manufacturers have a soft tooling process that allows them to get the fit, finish and tolerances right for their vehicles. Tesla is foregoing this entire step and going straight to the production tooling stage to hit their volume.
While skipping this step will save Tesla more time and money if they get the process right, it will add more costs and result in delays should anything go wrong.