How Overland’s car inspired Tesla’s Model 3 production
History repeats itself in unexpected ways, sometimes.
Claude Hopkins, writing almost 100 years ago, tells of a car-maker named John Willys. Willys produced the Overland car, of which Hopkins writes:
Mr. Willys raised some more money — a very little — and went on. Soon the factory capacity was oversold. There was no time to build more plants, so he erected tents. And in those tents he made that season, I believe, $365,000.”
(p. 118)
During Model 3 “production hell” during Q3 of 2018, Tesla erected what the media called “tents,” but which were in fact more semi-permanent, built-to-last structures. I don’t recall that Tesla did much to put a positive spin on the story, but because of its ‘unprecedented’ nature in automotive manufacturing, the ‘tents’ signaled to some that Tesla was struggling mightily to meet demand and was resorting to desperate efforts. Yet, Willys and Overland used this move successfully in this industry over 100 years ago with the help of Hopkins, who puts a ‘romantic’ spin on this story in the advertising:
“I told how demands from users had led John E. Willys to undertake to supply them. How that demand had grown and grown, until it was necessary to erect a plant of tents. …I showed in my advertising how the crowds were going to Overland automobiles. I told how the demand had forced a bankrupt concern into solvency. Then how it created a tent city. That presentation set people thinking. And they followed the trend. The Overland became, as it is today, one of the largest-selling cars in the world.” (pp. 119–120)
Tesla instead could have emphasized that the demand was so great that they hurried to meet it by successfully erecting new structures to their existing factory. The great demand shows a trend, that many people want what Tesla is offering, and people will follow trends (often called the “bandwagon” effect). “Our hard-working employees have accommodated rapid changes to deliver on our promises” could have been another theme, with images of plant workers on the assembly line in action.
I wonder if someone at Tesla, maybe even Elon, was aware of this history and whether it inspired the decision to create semi-permanent structures when factory space for production was lacking. Hey, it worked before.
