Elon Musk wants to show Germans how to build cars – The Sydney Morning Herald

While Musk has used a term for these machines Giga press that suggests Tesla conjured them in-house, this isnt the case. The company has been buying them from Idra Group, a closely held Italian company thats sold them to three customers on three continents and is in talks with other carmakers and major suppliers.

The front and rear castings will interface with frames beneath Model Ys that will house batteries built into the structure of the vehicle. This, too, could be a step change Tesla and other EV makers have to this point been housing their batteries in sheet metal, then sealing those coverings to separate floorpans.

Musk touted the ramifications of simpler and more integrated battery and body manufacturing during Teslas Battery Day event last year. He claimed the company could reduce investment per gigawatt hour of battery output by 55 per cent and shrink the amount of plant-floor space needed by 35 per cent.

Germanys automakers are watching Teslas progress closely.Credit:AP

For all the upside Musk has described, hes also acknowledged Tesla will be gambling in Gruenheide, a town about an hours drive east of the German capital.

Lot of new technology will happen in Berlin, which means significant production risk, Musk tweeted in October of last year. Teslas plants in Shanghai and Fremont, California, will attempt the same transitions in about two years, when the new tech is proven, he wrote at the time.

Five months after that post, a Giga press in Fremont was involved in a minor fire. The machine melts aluminum alloy at up to 850 degrees Celsius before the metal is moved into an only somewhat less-hot holding oven. Morgan Stanleys Jonas wrote in his October 24 report that the manufacturing process is tricky in part because the alloy must enter at a speed that ensures even cooling across the structure.

Germanys automakers are watching Teslas progress closely. VW may build a new EV factory near its sprawling Wolfsburg headquarters in direct response to Musks foray.

Earlier this month, VWs CEO Herbert Diess sought to rally his workers for the challenge. He warned Tesla may manage to make an EV in just 10 hours, versus the more than 30 hours VW needs at its plant in Zwickau. VWs new factory would make 250,000 EVs a year and aim to catch up to Tesla on production time.

Morgan Stanleys Jonas last month increased his forecast for how many cars Tesla will crank out annually by the end of the decade by 2.35 million, citing his expectation that Tesla will produce an average of more than 800,000 vehicles per plant by 2030. Thats far greater than the capacity for 500,000 units the company claims for its Fremont factory now.

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We have yet to see the moving assembly line moment in the EV industry, Jonas wrote, referring to Henry Fords 1913 breakthrough. We believe the time is approaching for that moment. And we believe Tesla is uniquely positioned to push the boundaries at the epicentre of a manufacturing change in auto making.

BMW AGs production chief Milan Nedeljkovic told reporters at an event last month that the carmaker hasnt worked with big casting components like Tesla, in part because this would reduce the flexibility it needs to produce several different kinds of models on the same assembly lines. Teslas new approaches intrigue him, nonetheless.

If it works, maybe its something wed consider, Nedeljkovic said.

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Elon Musk wants to show Germans how to build cars - The Sydney Morning Herald