The construction of Tesla Giga Berlin is progressing at a consistently rapid pace. Currently, there is great focus on the Casting building. This building is anticipated to house eight giant casting machines--the so-called Giga Press--for the manufacturing of Model Y.
At the moment, the installation of footings continues. The reinforcement frame is filled with cement, which is produced directly at the Giga Berlin site.
Source: @gigafactory_4/Twitter
According to the revised application submitted by Tesla in early July, the company will install eight Giga Press machines for the Model Y's underbody castings.
Giga Presses are a series of aluminum die casting machines manufactured by Idra Group in Italy. They are notable for being the largest high-pressure die casting machines in the world, with a clamping force of 5,600 to 6,200 tonnes-force (55,000 to 61,000 kN). 6,100-tonne-force (60,000 kN) die casting machines were ordered for Giga Berlin.
"There are 8 die casting machines with a maximum operating capacity of 73.1 t/d per machine. The maximum total capacity is 213,474 t/year."
There will be 8 big casting machines.
— Tobias Lindh (@tobilindh) July 5, 2020
They also seem to be bigger than the Giga Press described at Wikipedia: https://t.co/p5g0GkxWWI pic.twitter.com/c6g8UnWeLy
During a recent visit to Germany, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that Tesla plans to produce an updated version of the Model Y in Giga Berlin. But it will not be a simple copy of the one produced in the United States; rather, the crossover’s production will utilize a radical redesign of the core technology used to make cars:
“There’s a bunch of innovative stuff that we will be doing here that we will tell you about in the future. It’s not just a copy of Model Y. It’s actually a radical redesign of the core technology of building a car.”
This will be an important step as the company is redesigning a car for the first time.
“It is going to be the first time that there will be a transformation of the core structural design of the vehicle. It's quite a big thing. "
Having eight die-cast machines shows how serious Tesla is in reaching its 100,000+ per year vehicle production goals in Giga Berlin’s first year. As more details come to light about Tesla’s new factory, it’s becoming more apparent Giga Berlin is far more than the vaporware suggested by the company's critics. Instead, it is a fast-growing, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant, the production capacity of which will likely be highly disruptive to other automakers.
© 2020, Eva Fox. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter