Inside Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas, it looks as if the robots are the full-time staff, and people are simply there to oversee them. The sprawling ground of the stamping constructing—with its white partitions, pink stripes, and large presses scattered throughout—seems to be fairly a neat setup, virtually totally equipped and all set for mass manufacturing, Munro Stay’s newest video confirmed.
Earlier than we dive into how the door panels are made, this is a fast recap on how lengthy it took Tesla to achieve this stage: Tesla dropped the information in regards to the Gigafactory Texas again in 2020. Development began in July that very same yr, and in April 2022, Musk inaugurated the location. In only a few years, Tesla has not solely began cranking out the favored Mannequin Y at this location but in addition managed to resolve the engineering nightmare that was the Cybertruck.
The manufacturing unit tour showcases how Giga Texas is not merely Musk’s pet challenge—it is fairly an engineering feat. It additionally helps us perceive what might need triggered the lengthy delays in its growth cycle and deliveries.
Get Totally Charged
For starters, enormous metal coils are available and bear a sequence of processes earlier than turning into bulletproof door panels (To not all weapons, clearly). Within the video, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice chairman of car engineering explains every course of that results in coils changing into totally assembled door panels. All of it begins with a machine that straightens the coils earlier than coming into laser chopping cubicles, the place they’re lower into sheets with micron-level precision. One of many engineers mentioned the laser was the primary of its sort, and was a particular growth between Tesla and German industrial tools producer Schuler.
Tesla operates 21 furnaces on the website, the place the supplies are heated to 900 levels Celsius earlier than getting stamped, one of many engineers defined within the video. The furnaces are manufactured by the Swedish firm AP&T. And that is how they work: a chrome steel sheet, that might go on to grow to be the physique facet inside door, is first heated within the furnace, and it then will get swiftly picked up by a robotic earlier than being dropped into the stamping press—all inside a matter of seconds.
I’m no engineer, and but it appeared clear to me how Tesla is aiming to revolutionize manufacturing and make it extra environment friendly. “Easy is normally higher,” Moravy advised Sandy Munro. Whereas the completely different stations and cubicles aren’t seamlessly built-in—guide forklifts are required to convey the parts to the ultimate door meeting line—the manufacturing unit tour signifies that almost all of Tesla’s nightmares associated to the Cybertruck may now be historical past.
Some issues, although, stay unproven. “[Tesla is] able to roll [the Cybertruck] at excessive quantity. Now it’s similar to, how will we ramp and the way will we get the standard proper,” Moravy added.