Blog

Tesla has pioneered the usage of huge casting machines, often known as gigapresses, to make massive single items of auto underbodies, streamline manufacturing, and scale back the work of robots. The corporate’s die solid — or gigacast, as Elon Musk calls it — will now consider your entire underbody of its EVs as a single piece. Let’s do a deep dive into gigacasting and study what’s pushed it to the top of EV manufacturing.

How has the meeting line strategy to electrical autos harm producers? Tesla CEO Elon Musk has argued that legacy meeting processes have wanted to be modified for battery-powered autos. He states that a part of the issue is that meeting must be less complicated and sooner.

What’s gigacasting? Gigacasting makes use of casting machines to drive molten steel into molds below excessive stress to supply massive aluminum physique components, resembling your entire underside of a car. In very primary phrases, molten steel is injected right into a mould (the “die”), then cooled, ejected, and trimmed.

The place did Tesla CEO Elon Musk get the concept for gigacasting? He examined his little one’s die-cast toy vehicles and thought of ways in which it may very well be replicated for full-sized autos.

What’s the conventional strategy to automotive manufacturing? Traditionally, castings have been the predominant product type of automotive manufacturing and have primarily been used within the powertrain of inside combustion engine (ICE) autos. The principle physique of a automobile has been made by welding or stamping collectively a lot of separate components.

Why has gigacasting emerged? Gigacasting utilizing aluminum is one response to the best way that massively heavy auto batteries are reshaping how vehicles are designed. Tesla launched monumental, high-pressure aluminum die-casting machines that punch out car chassis and bodies-in-white.

Why has gigacasting develop into so necessary? Gigacasting has the potential to scale back per-unit manufacturing prices as a result of it eliminates welding dozens of physique components. As a substitute, it casts one single module. It saves time, labor, value, and manufacturing facility house, because it replaces a number of robots that weld automobile components along with a single machine.

What befell behind the scenes to make gigacasting a actuality for Tesla? Tesla reportedly turned to companies that make check molds out of business sand with 3D printers. Utilizing a digital design file, printers referred to as binder jets deposit a liquid binding agent onto a skinny layer of sand and regularly construct a mould, layer by layer, that may die solid molten alloys. The price of the design validation course of with sand casting prices about 3% of doing the identical factor with a steel prototype. Tesla was capable of tweak prototypes as many instances as wanted, reprinting a brand new one in a matter of hours utilizing machines from corporations resembling Desktop Metallic and its ExOne unit. The design validation cycle utilizing sand casting solely takes to 2 to three months, in contrast with anyplace from 6 months to a 12 months for a mould made out of steel.

How does the Mannequin Y match into the gigacasting story? Tesla took gigacasting from idea to observe in 2019 when it used gigacasting to manufacture the rear flooring part of the Mannequin Y. It took between 6,000 and 9,000 metric tons of drive. Tesla makes use of 2 large gigacastings that function the entrance and rear underbody within the Mannequin Y, thus revolutionizing conventional automobile physique (unibody) design and streamlining manufacturing. The brand new strategy to manufacturing is shortly transferring to develop into an business normal.

Inform us extra about gigacasting and the Mannequin Y manufacturing course of. The 2 castings changed 171 components, which had been principally sheet stampings together with some smaller castings, eradicated 1,600 welds, and eliminated 300 robots from the meeting line. All of this lowered required capital funding and floorspace considerably, and now the corporate can produce a Mannequin Y in 10 hours — about 3 instances sooner than EVs constructed by opponents.

How are the gigacastings manufactured? The enormous castings are manufactured on an enormous machine, referred to as a gigapress, which is ready to obtain 6,000 tons of locking drive and is theoretically able to producing as much as 45 castings per hour.

What obstacles did Tesla want to beat with these large-scale castings? The aluminum alloys used to supply the castings behave otherwise in molds manufactured from sand than they do in molds manufactured from steel. Early prototypes typically failed to fulfill Tesla’s specs. The casting specialists overcame these behavioral distinction by formulating particular alloys, nice tuning the molten alloy cooling course of, and developing with a post-production warmth therapy.

Why is gigacasting within the information these days? Musk instructed staff on the Gruenheide gigafactory final week that it could quickly be manufacturing a brand new, smaller EV that can retail for round $25,000. This gigafactory is residence to Tesla’s gigapress know-how, which the corporate has stated will allow it to fabricate EVs extra cheaply with fewer components. The 400 components which can be wanted in a standard automobile do a quantity on profitability. A single massive body — combining the entrance and rear sections with the center underbody the place the battery is housed — may very well be used towards manufacturing this reasonably priced Tesla EV.

Why aren’t all producers embracing gigacasting? Automobiles with a single molded underbody would now not permit altering one broken half in a car and would possibly improve the variety of autos which can be decided to be too expensive to restore. S&P World notes that there are monumental preliminary startup prices to gigacasting, and the method might yield distortion points within the steel. Collision repairs change drastically. Inspection scanning on the finish of line is in depth.

Are automakers aside from Tesla incorporating gigacasting? Volvo hopes to develop a number of car fashions that may make use of what it calls “megacasting” for its body-in-white parts. The castings will combine even mounting factors for parts resembling suspension arms and electrical motors. Common Motors chief government Mary Barra stated in 2022 that the corporate had ordered two “gigapress” machines with the intention of utilizing the know-how for mass-market autos.

Will Toyota undertake Tesla’s mannequin? Not precisely. As a substitute, Toyota’s Manufacturing System, which is predicated on just-in-time manufacturing effectivity, will depend on its a long time of expertise to seek out its personal improvements needed to supply thousands and thousands of autos every year in a number of configurations. Toyota instructed the Monetary Instances it needs greater than half of its 2030 gross sales goal to be made up of EVs utilizing its new modular structure, which permits it to supply completely different fashions that share key parts on the identical platforms. The corporate does want reconfiguration, although, to stay aggressive.