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Fun fact: Musk says that when Tesla was thinking about doing gigacasting, they called 6 suppliers of those machines asking if they can make 6 gigaton machine (w
by kjksf 4y ago
Fun fact: Musk says that when Tesla was thinking about doing gigacasting, they called 6 suppliers of those machines asking if they can make 6 gigaton machine (which didn't exist at the time).
5 out of 6 said "no" and 1 said "maybe". I'm guessing that "maybe" was IDRA and they made 6 gigaton, then 9 gigaton (already in Texas for making Cybertruck) and there are rumors of 12 gigaton machine in development.
Another fun fact: Tesla body line pre gigapress was 1000 robots.
Doing front casting removed 300 robots, rear casting another 300.
So Tesla saved 600 out of 1000 (60%) robots, so the line is shorter and faster.
- realworldperson 4y ago[dead]
- toomuchtodo 4y agoSandy Munro's teardown of one of the first Model 3s (circa 2019) and his advice to Tesla in ~200 initial manufacturing improvements was integral in shifting their manufacturing strategy (and also led to the termination of the person who designed the body). A more recent 2021 teardown has a lot of praise for the latest build quality. https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-sandy-munro-analyst-data-video/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-sandy-munro-analyst-... ("Tesla and Munro have since communicated, with the auto veteran sending the electric car maker a list of over 200 pro bono suggestions that could improve the Model 3’s body, which he believed was over-engineered. Munro himself spoke with Elon Musk, who explained that the person responsible for the Model 3’s body design had been terminated. In response, Munro told the CEO that the response was “not fast enough,” since Tesla “never should have hired (the engineer)” in the first place.") https://www.teslaoracle.com/2021/01/26/2021-tesla-model-3-sandy-munro-praise/ https://www.teslaoracle.com/2021/01/26/2021-tesla-model-3-sa... ("2021 Tesla Model 3 is as good as anything you could find out of Europe, says Sandy Munro")
- dumpsterlid 4y ago[dead]
- YeahNO 4y agoNot really fair to blame the engineer. Musk is the one who hired the engineer to lead the design of the Model 3, knowing he had no experience with vehicle manufacturing design. They wanted to "move fast and break things" like a tech company. It was an expensive learning process for Musk. A mistake he seems to repeatedly make.
- adolph 4y agoThe engineer had no experience with vehicle manufacturing design? https://electrek.co/2021/01/25/tesla-loses-best-engineering-elon-musk-seen/ https://electrek.co/2021/01/25/tesla-loses-best-engineering-... https://www.engadget.com/2018-07-02-tesla-engineering-lead-doug-field-leaves-the-company.html https://www.engadget.com/2018-07-02-tesla-engineering-lead-d...
- YeahNO 4y agoTwo different engineers, I am assuming Sandy Munro was disparaging Mr. Field. From your own Engadget link, you can clearly see that he had no vehicle manufacturing experience. Neither Apple, nor Segway produce automobiles, if that was unclear. "Field, who previously worked at Apple and Segway, joined Tesla in 2013 to develop the company's next-generation EVs. In that sense, his mark on the company is hard to escape. However, there's a potential source of conflict. Elon Musk asked Field to handle both manufacturing and production in 2017, right as the Model 3 was becoming a practical reality. You may know what happened next. Tesla struggled to boost Model 3 production levels after relying too heavily on robots, and Musk took charge of manufacturing to be sure his company met its 5,000-a-week Model 3 production target. Field effectively lost a large part of his role."
- twic 4y agoThey may be gigapresses, but those forces are in kilotonnes, not gigatonnes.
- mNovak 4y agoActually surprised no one is taking up the "gigagram" 9Gg moniker
- selectodude 4y agoThat doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Telsa uses pretty much off the shelf die-casting machines from Idra Group in Italy. The "giga" part of it is just the same sort of parlance as "giga factory" to make batteries. You can even buy your own "gigapress". https://www.idragroup.com/en/gigapress https://www.idragroup.com/en/gigapress
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIdra made a new widget for Tesla that other widget makers thought was too risky to attempt. Now these widgets are on the shelf. Giga is a marketing term related to doing something at a scale that has never been done before (& related to EVs).
- dylan604 4y ago>Giga is a marketing term related to doing something at a scale that has never been done before So, it's 21st century tech then?
- jabl 4y ago> Giga is a marketing term related to doing something at a scale that has never been done before Eh, the Heavy Press Program produced 50000 ton press forges in the mid-1950'ies (granted EV's weren't a thing then). Kind of amazing, a machine the size of a 4-story building that can bench press a battleship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program
- elil17 4y agoHeavy press program was amazing.They actually had to worry about the seismic waves created by the press. About 10x larger than the "gigapress."
- selectodude 4y agoImportant to remember that these aren't presses, they're die-cast machines. Totally different technology.
- intrasight 4y agoDirty robots - sold dirt cheap
- elil17 4y agoPerhaps you mean kiloton! A gigaton is a lot (like, a cubic kilometer of water).
- jameshart 4y agoMaybe this suggests the mindset he had when he got to Twitter and started complaining about how many micro services they had. “Maybe I can call up IDRA and get them to replace all these microservices with one gigaservice…”
- bombcar 4y agoWe will replace these millions of tweets with one tweet a million characters long!