Tesla's Berlin Plant Will Be Equipped with 8 Super Die-cast Machines

Germany's Handelsblatt reported that the world's most modern Tesla car factory was launched in Greenheide, Berlin.
 
In the die-cast workshop of Tesla's Berlin plant, a three-story giant die-cast machine in Tesla's "company colors" is producing body parts. The die-cast workshop will soon press the battery box, that is, the casing of the 4680 lithium battery.
 
The idea for the "Super Die-casting Machine" came from Italy. The aluminum ingots on the tray feed two Tesla die-cast machines to press the Model Y rear body, and the single die casting weighs 81 kilograms. So far, Tesla has casted the Model Y's rear body this way in Greenhead.
 

     
It wasn't Tesla who came up with the idea, but the Italian mechanical engineering company ldra. According to ldra manager Riccardo Ferrario, when the Italians presented the 'Super Die Casting Machine' at a trade fair in Berlin in 2019, they doubted. One potential customer just smiled and said, it would never be successful."
     
However, Tesla saw an advantage: the casting process eliminated 70 production steps. Musk was intrigued. The proposal came closest to his idea of ​​a machine making a machine. His engineers worked with ldra to develop the OL 6100 CS, which now stands in Greenhead, operating at 6,100 tons of pressure.
 
This is just the beginning. Six more "super die-cast machines" will be installed in the factory this year, bringing the total to eight. Eight sets are required, because both the rear body and front body of the Model Y are single die castings. Thus, the crossover vehicle becomes a structural kit assembled from very few parts. Musk came up with the idea while looking at a Matchbox car model.
 
In the future, the Tesla body will mainly consist of three parts. Two large parts including the front and rear bodies will be connected to the battery box. In total, 370 production steps were eliminated with this method. "The rear body alone saves us 300 robots," Musk said.
 
An analyst from investment bank Bernstein pointed out that by 2030, one in two electric vehicles will be produced using this process.
 
Tesla's capabilities are already evident at its first factory in California. Tesla is currently producing 8,550 vehicles a week at the former GM-converted car production plant. Toyota's flagship plant in Kentucky came in second with 8,427 weekly productions, followed by BMW in South Carolina with 8,343, according to a Bloomberg analysis of 70 U.S. auto plants.