The latest hot news about Tesla is that in early February 2021, Tesla officially announced that its Shanghai Gigafactory has adopted a 6000-ton large die-casting machine. So far, Teslas four vehicle plants, Fremont factory in California, Austin, Texas, Berlin factory in Germany, and Shanghai factory in China, have installed super-large die-casting machines to produce the rear floor of Model Y.

Today were going to pull the die-cast Tesla body.



If Tesla uses die casting instead of stamping, it is said to reduce weight and cost, which I can agree with. After all, it reduces the time cost, production line cost and labor cost.

At present, in Teslas Shanghai factory, a Model Y is rolled off the production line in two minutes on average. However, this large die-casting machine takes less than two minutes and 80-90 seconds to complete a die-casting process. It can finish 40-45 castings per hour and produce 1,000 castings per day. If you use the traditional process, stamping and welding the 70 parts to assemble a part, it will take at least two hours, must be multi-line, in order to meet the production pace.



The second is the production line cost. Under the framework of the existing production technology cost, the traditional production of 70 parts, according to a part with a set of molds, is also 70 sets of molds, and counting the robot arm around the production line, transmission line, all kinds of fixtures, the cost is certainly a very large number. A large die-casting machine takes up just 100 square metres, which, according to Elon Musk, reduces the footprint of the factory by 30%.



Besides labor costs will also be greatly reduced, the traditional auto welding factory invested about 1 billion yuan, the same investment cost die-casting machine into an organic whole, at the current price estimation can be replaced with three (cost with mature technology, the future will certainly be lower), and the production efficiency of the three sets of die-casting machine must be higher than the existing traditional stamping welding production line, a domestic mainstream car factory welding factory supporting about 200-300 production line workers, after using one die casting technology, the technology needed to workers at least can be reduced to 1/10 of the original.

Many media propaganda in order to reduce weight, this I do not agree with, because for this kind of sheet metal parts, in the shape of the structure, the same material, the biggest factor affecting its weight is the thickness of the sheet metal, increased from 1mm to 1.5mm the weight increased by 50%... With the current state of technology, the thickness of the die casting is definitely not as thick as the thickness of the stamping plate, so my bold guess is that the Tesla die casting will be heavier than the stamping part.

Die casting is not uncommon in the history of automobile manufacturing, but such a wide range of applications instead of stamping, in fact, there is a big controversy here, is the maintenance of the later.

Traditional car models made of aluminum alloy have very high maintenance costs, because the aluminum alloy parts are damaged and can only be replaced instead of sheet metal repair. A small collision only needs to replace one or two parts, will probably evolve into a whole replacement, maintenance costs are certainly increased accordingly.



The reason why we choose the rear bottom plate is because it is in a position that is not easy to be hit. The oil tank of a traditional car is arranged near this position, which is basically difficult to be hurt by ordinary collision.

As a technical school, in fact, I prefer the application of aluminum alloy die-casting + aluminum alloy profile + stamping, as shown in the figure below. It does not require large investment (die-casting equipment), the cost is not high (profile cost is low), and the efficiency is also reasonable.



In the long run, its certainly possible for Tesla to build an entire body in a one-piece die-casting way, perhaps by then the car has evolved into a fast-moving consumer goods, and who will repair it if it costs more to repair than to buy new cars?



If this step is really realized, it will certainly be a huge impact on the upstream auto manufacturing industry chain, and the industry reshuffle is possible. In addition, if the efficiency is improved to such a high level, more and more people will lose their jobs. If the economic sources are gone, who will consume the goods produced on the high efficiency industry chain? Sell goods to homeless people? Well, maybe Im overthinking it.

Without further ado, lets take a look at Teslas 6,000-ton die-casting machine. According to the publicity materials, this die-casting machine is owned by Shenzhen Power Technology Co., Ltd., which is a Hong Kong enterprise. It seems that Hong Kong is not only prosperous in business. It is also commendable in industry.



Teslas Shanghai Gigafactory, which has introduced three such die-casting machines, shows Musks confidence in Chinas electric car market.