" The company pioneered the use of huge presses with 6,000 to 9,000 tons of clamping pressure to mold the front and rear structures of its Model Y in a “gigacasting” process that slashed production costs and left rivals scrambling to catch up."
“The five people said a single large frame - combining the front and rear sections with the middle underbody where the battery is housed - could be used in Tesla’s small EV which it aims to launch with a price tag of $25,000 by the middle of the decade.”
“To overcome the obstacles, Tesla turned to firms that make test molds out of industrial sand with 3D printers. Using a digital design file, printers known as binder jets deposit a liquid binding agent onto a thin layer of sand and gradually build a mold, layer by layer, that can die cast molten alloys.”
You have to give Elon much credit for pushing new technologies to the limits. He is a risk taker and knows how to get the best from his engineers. And investors support his vision of the future and provide the resources to move ahead.
This is a fascinating development. While I see the benefit for manufacturing, I also see how it would make any auto repair greater than a minor fender bender devilishly difficult. No more”frame straightening”, and no more “replacing the front quarter”, you’d pretty much have to junk the whole car.
Insurance companies don’t know how to price this yet, so they’ll probably use past models, which (I think) might be wholly inadequate to cover losses. But I know next to nothing about that business, so I won’t speculate further.
WATCH the video the Captain has been pushing before commenting more on Tesla autos. Really. I KNOW it is hard to change your mind on stuff you’ve known is true since you were a teenage, but the “bent frame” discussion about car repair is now obsolete.
It is a great video, succinct, delightful at least to.folks with an engineer’s POV. To the point, informative, fascinating, and CREDIBLE.
Yup. Good stuff there. Sandy has the original Model 3 in this video, the one that he tore down and told Tesla they knew nothing about how to make cars. He’s very pleased with how well they listened. And then went beyond.
