May want to pick up some Tesla stock
 

Tesla reinvents carmaking with quiet breakthrough

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O) has combined a series of innovations to make a technological breakthrough that could transform the way it makes electric vehicles and help Elon Musk achieve his aim of halving production costs, five people familiar with the move said.

The company pioneered the use of huge presses with 6,000 to 9,000 tons of clamping pressure to mold the front and rear structures of its Model Y in a "gigacasting" process that slashed production costs and left rivals scrambling to catch up.

In a bid to extend its lead, Tesla is closing in on an innovation that would allow it to die cast nearly all the complex underbody of an EV in one piece, rather than about 400 parts in a conventional car, the people said.

The know-how is core to Tesla's "unboxed" manufacturing strategy unveiled by Chief Executive Musk in March, a linchpin of his plan to churn out tens of millions of cheaper EVs in the coming decade, and still make a profit, the sources said.

While Tesla has said its unboxed model involves producing large sub-assemblies of a car at the same time and then snapping them together, the size and make-up of the modular blocks is still the subject of speculation.

Terry Woychowski, president of U.S. engineering company Caresoft Global, said if Tesla managed to gigacast most of the underbody of an EV, it would further disrupt the way cars are designed and manufactured.

"It is an enabler on steroids. It has a huge implication for the industry, but it's a very challenging task," said Woychowski, who worked for U.S. automaker GM (GM.N) for more than three decades. "Castings are very hard to do, especially the bigger and the more complicated."

Two of the sources said Tesla's previously unreported new design and manufacturing techniques meant the company could develop a car from the ground up in 18 to 24 months, while most rivals can currently take anywhere from three to four years.

The five people said a single large frame - combining the front and rear sections with the middle underbody where the battery is housed - could be used in Tesla's small EV which it aims to launch with a price tag of $25,000 by the middle of the decade.

Tesla was expected to make a decision on whether to die cast the platform in one piece as soon as this month, three of the sources said, though even if they do press ahead the end product could change during the design validation process.

Neither Tesla nor Musk responded to questions from Reuters for this story.
3D PRINTING AND SAND

The breakthrough Tesla has made centres on the how the giant molds for such a large part are designed and tested for mass production, and how casts can incorporate hollow subframes with internal ribs to cut weight and boost crashworthiness.

In both cases the innovations, developed by design and casting specialists in Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States, involve 3D printing and industrial sand, the five people said. All spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

So far, automakers have shied away from casting ever-bigger structures because of the "gigacast dilemma": creating molds to make parts of 1.5 metres squared or more boosts efficiency but is expensive and comes with myriad risks.

Once a large metal test mold has been made, machining tweaks during the design process could cost $100,000 a go, or redoing the mold altogether might come to $1.5 million, according to one casting specialist. Another said the whole design process for a large metal mold would typically cost about $4 million.

That has been deemed prohibitive by automakers - especially as a design might need half a dozen tweaks or more to achieve a perfect die from the perspective of noise and vibration, fit and finish, ergonomics and crashworthiness, the sources said.

But Musk's vision from the start was to find a way to cast the underbody in one piece, despite the risks, the sources said.

To overcome the obstacles, Tesla turned to firms that make test molds out of industrial sand with 3D printers. Using a digital design file, printers known as binder jets deposit a liquid binding agent onto a thin layer of sand and gradually build a mold, layer by layer, that can die cast molten alloys.

According to one source, the cost of the design validation process with sand casting, even with multiple versions, is minimal - just 3% of doing the same with a metal prototype.

That means Tesla can tweak prototypes as many times as needed, reprinting a new one in a matter of hours using machines from companies such as Desktop Metal (DM.N) and its unit ExOne.

The design validation cycle using sand casting only takes to two to three months, two of the sources said, compared with anywhere from six months to a year for metal mold prototypes.
TAILOR-MADE ALLOYS

The subframes in a car underbody are typically hollow to save weight and improve crashworthiness. At the moment, they are made by stamping and welding multiple parts together leaving a void in the middle.

To cast subframes with hollows as part of one gigacasting, Tesla plans to place solid sand cores printed by the binder jets within the overall mold. Once the part has been cast, the sand is removed to leave the voids.

But despite that greater flexibility achieved in both the design process and the complexity of the large frames, there was still one more major hurdle to clear.

The aluminium alloys used to produce the castings behaved differently in sand and metal molds and often failed to meet Tesla's criteria for crashworthiness and other attributes.

The casting specialists overcame that by formulating special alloys, fine-tuning the molten alloy cooling process, and also coming up with an after-production heat treatment, three of the sources said. And once Tesla is happy with the prototype mold, it can then invest in a final metal one for mass production.

The sources said Tesla's upcoming small car has given it a perfect opportunity to cast an EV platform in one piece, mainly because its underbody is simpler,

The kind of small cars Tesla is developing – one for personal use and the other a robotaxi – don't have a big "overhang" at the front and the back, as there is not much of a hood or rear trunk.

"It's like a boat in a way, a battery tray with small wings attached to both ends. That would make sense to do in one piece," one person said.

The sources said, however, that Tesla still had to make a call on what kind of gigapress to use if it decides to cast the underbody in one piece - and that choice would also dictate how complex the car frame would be.

To punch out such large body parts fast, the people said Tesla would need new bigger gigapresses with massive clamping power of 16,000 tons or more, which would come with a hefty price tag and might need larger factory buildings.

Three of the five sources said one problem with presses using high clamping power, however, was that they cannot house the 3D printed sand cores needed to make hollow subframes.

The people said Tesla could solve these obstacles by using a different type of press into which molten alloy can be injected slowly - a method that tends to produce higher quality castings and can accommodate the sand cores.

But the process takes longer.

"Tesla could still choose high-pressure for productivity, or they could choose slow alloy injection for quality and versatility," one of the people said. "It's still a coin toss at this point."

i just read somewhere that tesla has more value currently shorted against it, than the IPO was worth.

sure seems like tesla is losing their edge, and are way overvalued. everyone else has as good of cars, or better currently for sale.

I picked up a ton @ around $100 8 months ago(?), not buying more right now @ $275.

I've done VERY well with Tesla Stock, and I can't wait till SpaceX goes IPO public.

I can't help but think that if it's in the media that you're too late to reap the big rewards.

I've seen those castings in person, they look like **** and insurance premiums on these cars will be bonkers. A good slide into a curb will total a car if the rear subframe casting cracks.

They're also not new, or is it that the news is only public recently?

This

That was my first thought, as well. Now just about anything more than a fender bender is going to total the car!

It's become time for an auto to be a recycled product in the way of any appliance. Putting something together piece by piece like an air cooled 911 is not the future. Unfortunate in ways, but there are plenty of projects for those that want them.
I just doubt that a Prius will ever be a collector's item. (Well, everything at one point will be a conversation piece.)

It is funny that when Tesla was started and in its infancy years ago, the mantra here (by some) was "it'll never work" and here we are full circle. :)

I've heard that trope many times, how so in this case?

I would think the big rewards are 2-3 quarters after these processes have gone into production and shipped doubling (who knows) Tesla's stock price today.

yup. but im on the opposite train. i knew tesla would be initially successful, but the tricky second album seems to not be in the cards for them. elon seems pretty hell bent on destroying the company. the only advantage they have anymore is the charger network, and that advantage is reduced every single day. kia/hyundais EVs are arguably better already.

all the more reason tesla will end up a GM brand to replace Cadillac (cause no one cares about Cadillac). we all know this was going to be the case all along. become the top tier luxury car brand for GM. being an independent car maker is just not a real long term plan.

I don't buy it--Tesla will never be luxury. They're only luxury to non-car-enthusiast tech folks that are making the jump from fifteen year old Corollas.

I agree. For a while there he was considered a visionary, but when he abandoned innovation and spent $44 billion on his hobby (and who among the business owners here has not?) he began to look a bit like an unstable, looney tunes eccentric.

Pretty much right on. No one cares about Cadillac now, a good way to resurrect the brand is to make it GM's luxury EV.

It's been decades since car enthusiasts gave a rat's patoot about Cadillac, and car enthusiasts are a dying breed anyway. Cadillac marketers don't care about car enthusiasts, they care about old people who enjoy an outdated concept of luxury. I'm 73 and I think Cadillacs are a joke, and I'm not alone. Today a Cadillac is just a Chevy with more padding and more bells and whistles. Maybe Tesla can make Cadillac interesting and inject some semblance of additional intrinsic value into the brand.

Cadillac makes by far the most enthusiast oriented sports sedans on the market, ct4 and ct5 blackwing. Huge power, RWD, manual transmission, Recaro seats.

Take one over a panamera or m3-M5 anyday.

Cadillac's problem is brand identity imho, sell fire breathing manual sports sedans next to badge engineered CUVs as you say



https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/bf...ebp&width=1200

electric cars are an eventuallity and tesla will be winning for at least a while, its the valuation I struggle with. 3 x toyota market cap....dont make no sense, but it is a fun ride to be on. I gotta think it will correct itself at somepoint but not the shorting type. Or maybe the marketshare maches the value and every man woman and child has 3 teslas.

I absolutely agree. Cadillac doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Trying to sell an electric blue performance car to Cadillac's market is ridiculous. They seem to want to destroy a 100 year old image. The Cadillac brand needs a complete reset, and a quiet, comfortable, luxurious electric car for the well heeled would be a good niche.

To be fair...that's all ANY luxury vehicle is (except Rolls, Bentley, etc.)--a slightly better version of the crapbox they sell the general public...marked up big time.

It seem to me that Caddy has had a bit of a resurgence with the _TS-V stuff, and the angular lines. I see a lot of caddies, cars and SUVs on the roads. I don't think I'd ever own one, but even the angular lines grew on me (in some cases). I feel like they are no longer the "old white guy luxury car" but are now the "American Merc/Bimmer option". But then I'm not their target, so maybe I'm wrong
Isn't that what just about everything is today short of Bently, Rolls, and the like?

Lexus = cushy Toyota with better finishing. BMW and Merc both make plenty of cheap, entry level cars, so I'm not sure that their high end cars are anything but the low end cars + some luxury.

It seem to me that to get true luxury these days, you've got to go to one of the boutique luxury car manufacturers.

But then I haven't driven, ridden in, or shopped that many cars, so my ideas may be WAY off base.

Exactly