Tesla’s SUV is here. It’s model y. It has been wildly rumored that model y uses the single casting method to manufacture model y. in one speculation, model y has also become a product with the most separation of internal and external cognition in Tesla’s history.
Model 3 body
In the early years, sandy Munro, CEO of Munro & Associates, an American engineering consulting firm, took 6600 man hours to reverse dismantle two model 3’s. At the same time, the company’s old engineers and his team disassembled Tesla Model 3, BMW I3 and Chevrolet bolt respectively, and made a comparison, and found the fatal design defects of Tesla Model 3: the body, weight, and matching clapboard design did not consider manufacturability, and the BIW of model 3 was seriously over designed.
Tesla’s original intention is to enhance the passive safety of model 3 by strengthening the design of various parts of the structure. In April 2018, Elon interviewed CBS for the first time, and admitted that the manufacturing complexity of model 3 embarrassed the fully automated production line, and the role of human in the manufacturing process was underestimated. What Elon didn’t say is that because of the complexity of BIW manufacturing, the head of model 3 BIW has been fired.
No doubt, model y is bound to break through the design of model 3.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, has been touting the upcoming Tesla Model y in Germany as “a revolution in automotive body engineering.”. Tesla’s successful integration of 70 parts from model 3 into two parts in model y is just the beginning, musk said.
Tesla plans to use its new ultra large casting technology more widely throughout its electric vehicle product line. A patent application filed in 2019 shows Tesla’s new casting machine for model y. Now, musk says the technology will be more widely used in the model y cars to be built in gigafactory in Berlin.
Tesla’s new patent: multi directional integrated casting machine for frame and related methods. With this one-piece casting machine, the body of model y will be reduced from 70 parts to 1, greatly reducing the capital expenditure of assembling all parts together.
In Tesla’s words, in general, BIW is produced by using multiple die casting machines separately. For example, a die casting machine in a factory may be dedicated to a particular part. When these parts are produced, they need to be welded together by workers or robots to form a whole BIW.
For example, if the die-casting machine is responsible for one part, then multiple parts will be used for multiple machines. In this way, there will be more capital cost and time cost in the manufacturing process. So Tesla invented this patent, which can reduce manufacturing related costs, including but not limited to factory operating costs, tool costs (number of equipment), time costs, and labor costs. If it is divided into two parts, the time cost and capital cost should be reduced.
The patent describes a multidirectional casting machine which can be used to cast an integral body and, more specifically, an integrated body for an electric vehicle. Multiple parts of the body can be manufactured in one piece without further assembly and welding. In general, this reduces the number of parts and operating procedures for the body.
In short, it is to integrate large and small frame parts together to form a large module. For example, the whole side of a car body is directly cast. Then through the automatic assembly of these large modules, and then welding, become a whole body in white. In this way, we can reduce the intermediate links and further speed up the efficiency.
Then take a look at the patent diagram. The operation steps described in the patent are relatively complex. But to put it simply, the car body is divided into several large modules, which are completed by the machines on the top, left, right, front and back in the figure. We will compare these machines to five workers for the moment.
After manufacturing these modules, five workers put the modules together to get a BIW semi-finished product. Then through a small amount of welding, they are connected to form a complete body in white.
As for how the five workers made the major modules of the body in white, the patent said that the casting method would be used. In other words, each of the five workers has a mold. By injecting molten metal into the mold, the modules of the body in white are obtained and then assembled.
On August 5, 2020, Tesla’s giant model y casting machine was reported to have made its debut at the Fremont plant in California.
According to Tesla on August 13, Fremont plant will soon start the world’s largest one-piece casting machine. This monster can greatly simplify the manufacturing process of model y and reduce the cost of large-scale production of Tesla again.
It usually takes several years for a traditional automobile manufacturer to build four workshops — stamping, welding, painting and final assembly. However, musk directly set up a shed when he met the capacity bottleneck.
This temporary tent is Tesla’s production line. Musk personally stationed in the Tesla Fremont secret service factory, overseeing the war 24 hours and drinking Lhasa in it, making Tesla’s weekly production capacity rapidly soar to 5000 vehicles.
The model y, manufactured at the Fremont plant in California, features a large number of cast parts in the tail, which is due to its process improvement on large castings