Wen | Huang Tianran
This is a single die-casting car body component, weighing 13 kilograms, with complex modeling structure, which is integrally die-cast by Giga Press, a 6-ton die-casting machine.
Recently, Axel Turk, a German die-casting expert, shared this picture from a super factory in Texas on Linkedin, and congratulated Tesla's engineers on successfully manufacturing giant castings unprecedented in the automobile industry.
"Those arrogant and paunchy German automakers with state support may fall off their high horses." Turk wrote excitedly.
According to the photos released by Turk, this single casting is the bottom component of Model Y front frame displayed by Tesla on Battery Day last September.
At that time, Musk said that Tesla had developed a new chassis structure. The main body of the chassis structure was composed of a single die-cast body component in front and rear parts, and an integrated chassis integrated battery pack.
this inspiration comes from the aerospace field-aircraft manufacturers make wings with fuel tanks instead of wings with fuel tanks inside.
Through structural innovation, Model Y can reduce 37 parts, and increase the battery life by 14% while reducing weight by 1%.
last year, Tesla realized the integral die-casting of the entire rear car body (including the collision-proof steel beam) of Model Y, and successfully integrated 7 parts into two.
With the exposure of the frame bottom component before integral molding, it means that Musk is one step closer to the ultimate goal of directly casting the whole body in white.
as we know, traditional car manufacturers usually go through the process of stamping, welding, painting and final assembly, and the body-in-white is welded by a lot of stamping parts.
In order to simplify the process of building a car, Musk proposed to directly cast the whole body-in-white by using the die casting process, just like making a matchbox alloy toy car.
die casting is a metal casting process, and its principle is similar to that of injection molding. High pressure is applied to the molten metal and injected into the mold to cast the required parts.
this process is mostly used to manufacture aluminum alloy car bodies. Cadillac, BMW, Audi and other models have all used aluminum alloy castings, but they have never made aluminum alloy car body castings as large as those on Model Y..
Tesla's earlier patent for die casting machine shows that in the future, Tesla's body will be composed of five die casting parts, while its chassis will be composed of three die casting parts, and a car will only have eight components.
This means that Tesla Super Factory will not need to manage a large number of white body stamping parts in the future, which will simplify the process links such as welding and gluing, greatly reduce the manufacturing cost and shorten the off-line time of vehicles.
in addition, the traditional stamping process will produce a lot of waste residue, and Giga Press can recycle waste like a toy car, and the utilization rate of raw materials is almost 1%.
The integral die casting can also improve the endurance of the vehicle by reducing weight, increase the working area of the anti-collision beam, improve the rigidity of the car body and improve the collision safety by more than 2%.
the quality consistency of car body components is also guaranteed without too many stamping parts splicing.
Therefore, Musk has always claimed that this will be "a revolution in automobile body engineering."
At present, Tesla has at least 14 giant die casting machines, which are distributed in factories all over the world.
It is difficult for other car companies to replicate this innovation of Tesla.
Die casting machines and dies are very expensive, and it is difficult to share the cost without economies of scale. However, at present, only Tesla can sell hundreds of thousands of steel-aluminum hybrid cars a year.
furthermore, Giga Press is jointly customized by Tesla and die casting machine manufacturers. Tesla is deeply involved in the design and manufacture of software and hardware, and others can't buy machines or technical configurations.
most importantly, Tesla's aluminum alloy material is an exclusive formula. Without this material, Giga Press could not make such a large aluminum casting.
as early as 216, Tesla hired Charles Koymen, an expert on Apple alloys, and led the material engineering teams of Tesla and Space X. Only with material innovation can technological innovation be achieved.
The answer is actually very simple, because Tesla has never stopped innovating, whether it was once close to bankruptcy or involved in the whirlpool of public opinion again and again.
this kind of innovation is not a tinkering on the shoulders of predecessors, but a subversive innovation from the first principle, which is enough to redefine the whole industry.
Today, it's actually very difficult for you to bypass Tesla and talk about the application of some new technologies, new materials and new technologies in the smart tram scene.
This is part of the reason why Tesla is always controversial.
innovation without controversy is probably not innovation.