Written by / Qian Yaguang
Editor/ Liu Baohua
Design / Shi Yuchao
Recently, a Tesla unilateral accident scene photos and related chat records circulated in the network, a car number for su B head Tesla Model Y reversed may be because the owner of the operation carelessly, the left rear side of the vehicle directly hit the right corner of the house, causing serious damage and deformation in the rear half of the vehicle.
Judging from the accident photos, the car was damaged in a large area from the right rear door to the right side of the tailgate, and the entire right rear rear collapsed seriously, and the tailgate, taillights, rear wheel arches, including the triangle window, were damaged to varying degrees.
According to reliable sources, the entire right rear body of the Model Y was torn in a large area, not only the rear exterior trim and sheet metal parts visible in the photo were damaged, but also the right rear shock absorber, the reinforcement, the entire rear anti-collision beam, the entire roof panoramic glass and other parts also needed to be replaced, and the structural parts were injured.
According to the chat records between the owner and tesla's account manager, tesla gave an estimated maintenance cost of 200,000 yuan. "So expensive, the car is only 280,000 yuan." This inadvertent collision knocked out 71% of the price of the car. The owner of the car said that if it is so expensive, it is better to scrap it.
The photo was also sent to a group, and the members of the group guessed that the maintenance cost was 50,000 yuan, which deviated from Tesla's fixed loss price and exceeded the cognition of most netizens.
Some industry insiders believe that this may be related to insurance and Tesla's product features and maintenance. On December 26, 2021, the introduction of special car insurance for new energy vehicles, major insurance companies used special premium algorithms for new energy vehicles, and as a result, the premiums of many models have risen, and Tesla has risen especially. Some Model 3 owners said that the premium increased by 60% over the previous year, and many Model Y owners on the Internet said that their premiums rose by 6,000 yuan overnight.
Tesla maintenance costs are notoriously high, auto business reviews on this matter consulted the Tesla service center in Beijing, a reception maintenance staff told reporters, although do not know what kind of results after the repair center dismantled and inspected there, but with his experience, look at the photos, this injury is estimated to have to change the body. If it is repaired, more than 200,000 yuan is possible.
He said that luxury cars like BMW and Mercedes-Benz have a high zero-to-whole ratio, and single-sale parts are very expensive, and Tesla is no exception. When he was working for other brands, a car of 800,000 yuan, one foot down, hit and may be repaired to get 600,000 yuan.
If it is in Beijing, if the normal insurance company determines it, it should be given scrap and will not be repaired. He felt that the insurance company would not lose more than 200,000 yuan, and it was better to repair the car than to give money directly, that is, all scrapped, probably tens of thousands of yuan. If it is fixed for maintenance, the repair is out, and the car has no value.
The reason why Tesla's maintenance is particularly expensive, one is that as the staff of Tesla Service Center said, the zero-to-whole ratio is very high, the price of parts is expensive, and it involves vehicle appearance repair, maintenance of vehicle functionality, safety and prolongation of vehicle service life, etc., not in Tesla's service center, but to Tesla and car maintenance service companies to set up a sheet metal spray center to do, maintenance of the man-hour cost is also quite expensive.
Second, Model Y uses an all-aluminum body, compared with the steel body, the aluminum body in the occurrence of rubbing, damage, poor ductility of the aluminum material can not be repaired by sheet metal, maintenance is usually based on direct replacement, which will also lead to a sharp increase in maintenance costs, because small injuries may require major treatment.
Third, Tesla Model Y uses die-casting rear body technology, through a 6,000-ton die-casting machine, the metal melting hydraulic pressure into the metal mold molding.
This die-casting technology only needs accurate and simple heat treatment to reduce the internal stress of the product to a very low level, thereby effectively improving the rigidity of the vehicle, which also improves the safety performance of the whole vehicle; not only reduces the traditional stamping parts, but also greatly simplifies the welding process; the manufacturing time can be reduced from 1-2 hours of the traditional process to 3-5 minutes, no transportation is required; the factory footprint is reduced by 30%; the vehicle is lighter, the endurance is increased by 14%; the opportunity will reduce the entire back body of more than 70 parts to 4, which not only improves the production efficiency It also directly reduced the manufacturing cost of the body by 40%.
At the same time, this body process also has a hidden danger, that is, in case the die-casting body is damaged, the maintenance cost will be very high. For ordinary consumers, the cost of maintenance is high, and for maintenance personnel, maintenance is also more difficult.
Some car company body engineers said that in the accident, if the body using traditional welding technology only needs to replace the corresponding parts, the cost is relatively controllable, and the one-piece die-casting casting means that the replacement and maintenance costs of parts are rising.
Elon Musk has shared some details about the crash repair strategy for die-cast bodies: "Cutting and using latch parts instead to complete the crash repair. "However, in this accident, the rear body structure was damaged, and it may not be solved by cutting and replacing the latch."
In addition, in this accident, the body shape change caused by the impact also has the possibility that the three-electric system will be damaged. If the car's three-electric system, especially the battery, is also damaged in the accident, the repair price will also rise sharply.
According to the analysis of bloggers, there may be two repair solutions in this accident: one is to cut off the damaged right side shock absorber package and weld the new right side shock absorber package. However, it is uncertain that tesla factory can only provide Model Y shock absorption package, the entire rear body die-casting molding, may not only die cast a separate shock absorbing package for maintenance use; two will cut the entire rear body, replace the entire rear body, this program is the most reasonable, of course, the price is also quite expensive, accessories cost plus man-hour costs, 200,000 yuan is really not outrageous.
The actual maintenance cost of this accident can only be known after the completion of the owner's maintenance, and 200,000 yuan is only a reference at present.
Integrated casting technology provides many advantages such as sustainability, cost and performance for the car over its life cycle, but this technology is a new technology after all, making the structure of the vehicle simpler, and there may be more cases where minor accidents require major surgery.
Recently, Volvo is also preparing to follow suit, introducing a whole new and more sustainable range of technologies and manufacturing processes at the Torslanda manufacturing plant, including an aluminium alloy integrated casting process, a new battery assembly plant and a final assembly plant.
There may be more manufacturers using this technology for vehicle production, more vehicles with die-cast integrated body, and more sufficient maintenance cases, we will see a reasonable maintenance plan.