Tesla reportedly scales back its gigcasting manufacturing ambitions

It went from one piece to three.

Typically, automakers assemble the underbody from hundreds of individual parts. But Tesla has been a leader in using massive presses to cast large sections, with the goal of eventually producing the entire underbody in a single piece. The objective was to simplify the process and at the same time drastically reduce manufacturing costs.

Tesla also promoted something it called the “unboxed” manufacturing process, in which parts are assembled in dedicated areas of a factory and then all assembled at the end. The process was promised to speed up automobile construction while cutting costs in half.

But now the company is sticking to the manufacturing process it uses for its Model Y and Cybertruck crossover vehicles, in which the underbody is assembled from three pieces: two gigantic front and rear sections and a middle section made from aluminum and steel. where the battery is stored, Reuters it says.

The news is the latest drop in the rollercoaster ride Tesla has been on since the start of the year, when the company’s CEO Elon Musk warned of slower sales amid growing competition in the U.S. and China, its two main markets. Since then, the company has laid off more than 10% of its global workforce, lost several top executives and reported profits that fell short of even some Wall Street analysts’ gloomiest forecasts.

Much hope was pinned on the company’s next affordable EV, the so-called $25,000 “Model 2.” But then Reuters reported last month that Musk canceled the project, preferring to invest the company’s resources in a fully autonomous robotaxi.

Tesla has since reaffirmed its plan to make more affordable electric vehicles, but Musk declined to share many details during the company’s recent earnings call. In its first-quarter report, Tesla said its next-generation models “will utilize aspects of the next-generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms and may be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle lineup.”

It was unclear whether the more affordable models would be entirely new vehicles or just cheaper versions of the Model 3 and Y.

When asked about Tesla’s gigcasting innovations as it relates to its plans for more affordable electric vehicles and whether he was worried about the process being copied by its Chinese competitors, Musk turned to his favorite topic: autonomy. .

“We should be seen as an AI robotics company,” he said. “If you value Tesla as a car company…it’s just the wrong structure.”