Tesla Denies Reports Of Model 3 Display Shortage

Tesla Motors unveils the Model 3 (AP Photo/Justin Pritchard, File)

Should the production ramp-up of Tesla’s much ballyhooed Model 3 turn out somewhat less exponential, Tesla could point fingers at quality problems impeding the delivery of the car’s all-important display. Except that Tesla says that the quality problems don’t exist.

“There has been a delay in the center console shipment,” China focused equity research firm JL Warren Capital told its clients in a research note. According to the note, “Japan Display (6740 JP) makes the LCD screens for the Model 3. TPK (3673 TPE) and Lens Technology (300433 SHE) laminate the panels. Although we believe that the screen yield issue will eventually get worked out, it currently has delayed the touch screen shipments to the factory in California.”

Last week, and in one of his trademark sibylline tweets, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk perplexed his followers with a “Going over the small nuances of Model 3 production. Very important that nothing sounds tinny.”

Twitter

Possible hiccups?

The Model 3’s display is a prominent part of the car. Mounted to an instrument panel devoid of other instruments, the screen “resembles an off-the-shelf computer monitor that’s been bolted onto the dashboard,” wrote the Tesla enthusiast blog Teslarati.

Japan Display is an LCD technology joint venture by Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi. Lens Technology is a Chinese technology company headquartered in Hunan, China. Taiwanese TPK makes touch modules. Ms. Li told me that the “LCD screens are supplied by Japan Display and laminated by Lens Technology and TPK Holdings. The lamination process is done in China, and upon completion, the screens are exported to the US via air.” Ms. Li figures that all told, customs clearance and transit could “take approximately 1 month.”

Let's block ads! (Why?)