https://qz.com/1318948/tesla-is-breaking-its-model-3-designs-to-get-cars-out-the-door/

Tesla CEO Elon Musk needs to make more cars. The company has fallen short of Model 3 production goals since it started making the mass-market car last summer, promising 5,000 cars per week by the end of 2017 but only delivering 2,425 a week over the last three months of the year.

In an effort to drastically ramp up production, Tesla employees are now tinkering with the core designs of the Model 3 car and the production process, detailed by a New York Times report (paywall), something that experts say is unprecedented. Executives at Tesla decided that the car didn’t need so many spot welds holding the underbody together, so engineers found 300 “unnecessary” welds and reprogrammed the welding robots cut them from the production process.