Recently, a screenshot of the chat history of a Tesla owner has aroused heated discussion among the majority of car owners on the Internet. The Jiangsu owner's Tesla Model Y accidentally crashed into the rear wall while reversing, causing damage to the rear part of the right rear side. However, it is this collision that makes the owner have the impulse to scrap directly, because according to Tesla's official after-sales staff, the vehicle's rear shock absorber package was damaged, but the maintenance cost was estimated to reach about 200,000 yuan.
Although the vehicle damage involves more parts, including tailgate, tail lights, rear wheel arches and triangular windows, etc., but the overall is not too serious, the sky-high maintenance cost is really puzzling, the owner said that the original price of the car is only 280,000 yuan, the maintenance cost of 200,000 yuan is not as good as scrapped.
However, looking back at the Tesla Model Y that requires sky-high maintenance costs, its most expensive place is obviously not only the damage of the rear shock absorber package and other parts, but the integrated die-cast rear body used by Tesla Model Y, once the part is injured, the overall rear body may have to be rebuilt.
In fact, since Tesla first used integrated die-casting technology on the Model Y, this technology is also known as the revolution of the body process, and many car companies have also bet, but who ever thought that this has become a hidden burden for the owner, is the integrated die-casting process an innovation or a scam?
There is a saying that integrated die casting is really cattle
Last year, Tesla officially released the process video of the shanghai gigafactory body integration casting, a 6,000-ton giant die-casting machine, which molded the model Y back plate in one piece, combining the original 70 parts into 2 large pieces, and later merging into one piece. So far, the "black technology" of body integration die-casting structural parts has formed a boom in the automotive industry, and a number of new car-making forces such as Domestic Xiaopeng and Weilai have followed, including traditional car companies such as the Great Wall and Chang'an, which have also begun to have relevant layouts.
On February 8 this year, Volvo announced that it will invest 10 billion crowns to upgrade its Torslanda plant in Sweden, the most critical of which is the production of the back plate of the new generation of models using a giant die-casting machine with 8,000 tons of clamping force.
So why is integrated die casting technology leading the automotive manufacturing revolution?
Although many auto companies today claim to have entered the era of Industry 4.0 and made great breakthroughs in intelligent digitalization, in the existing automobile production process, the manufacture of large components such as automobile bodies or front and back plates basically maintains the process of decades ago, and is completed by dozens of small parts through welding, riveting and other processes. The process is less difficult, but the components composed of dozens of parts may require different suppliers to choose, stamp, weld, logistics and transportation. Every structural adjustment means that dozens of parts are started from scratch and become the majority of the production costs of car companies.
The integrated die-casting technology is like the heavenly blessing star of the car companies, bringing countless benefits.
First of all, from the perspective of production efficiency, integrated die-casting technology provides a high degree of flexibility for automobile production, for different power systems or batteries, only need to adjust the mold once, you can die casting to adapt to the new design of the parts, reduce the complexity of production, reduce the cost and time cycle of redesigning new products, and greatly accelerate the process of mass production of new models.
On the one hand, in the era of electrification, low-carbon environmental protection, efficient and safe, and space utilization have become the ultimate pursuit of pure electric vehicles. These are basically the strengths of integrated die casting, due to its high flexibility, the structural design restrictions of the produced modules are also very small, which can meet the needs of comfort, safety and other aspects at one time.
On the other hand, the current integrated body die casting basically refers to the aluminum body, and its lightweight advantages are also unmatched by the traditional steel aluminum alloy and steel body. And compared with the parts that originally required multiple multi-level procurement, the integrated die-casting body can be directly in place, directly select raw materials, ensure the lowest carbon footprint, and control carbon emissions is easier to achieve.
As Musk once described the technology: "Lighter, more compact, better NVH, lower investment, lower unit cost." ”
Good for car companies, but bitter for consumers?
From this point of view, integrated body die casting has indeed played a vital role in the rapid development of car companies in the era of electrification.
However, for consumers, maintenance costs have become the biggest hidden danger, once like the owner at the beginning of the article, the relevant parts of the serious accident, the cost savings of the integrated die-cast parts during production are passed on to the user who uses it.
Of course, the car company actually took this into account, Tesla and Volvo chose to use integrated die casting to produce the back plate of the body, it is precisely because the damage rate of this part in the accident is low, generally only a serious rear-end accident or a very low probability of reversing the wall, which will lead to the damage of the rear bottom plate of the vehicle. At this time, the integrated rear back plate with higher strength and better energy absorption can better ensure the safety of the occupants.
Then there is the continuous upgrading of today's intelligent equipment of automobiles, the active safety of vehicles has been greatly improved, and the collision accident rate has decreased year by year, which has also alleviated the worry of damage to integrated die-casting components to a certain extent.
Well, what should be washed is almost washed. In fact, Tesla's pits are indeed quite a few, and the cost of maintenance has long been well-known, even ordinary painting is much more expensive than imported luxury cars. Some time ago, there was a Finnish Tesla owner because of dissatisfaction with the high maintenance costs and personally blew up the car, it is reported that the owner of the Model S appeared to have an error code, but after returning to the factory to check, he was told to spend nearly 144,000 yuan to replace the entire battery. In anger, he decided to abandon the repair and install explosives to blow up Musk's doll and the car.
However, for ordinary consumers, Tesla's most controversial is its high insurance costs, at the end of December last year, after the launch of the new energy insurance policy, it was immediately revealed that Tesla Model Y was insured at 8278 yuan on the 23rd, and the insurance cost after the 27th New Deal soared to more than 14,000 yuan, an increase of up to 80%. A large part of the reason behind this premium surge is that in addition to Tesla's own high maintenance costs, the all-aluminum integrated body used by Model Y also has to bear certain responsibilities.
As the saying goes, the wool comes out of the sheep. Integrated body die casting can indeed be called a major innovation in the automobile manufacturing process, greatly improving the production efficiency of car companies, and also providing consumers with better models. But from the consumer's point of view, users still have to pay for technological innovation to some extent. As an automobile manufacturing company, we must not only see the benefits brought by integrated die casting, but also stand in the position of consumers, improve the reliability and stability of vehicles as much as possible, and completely eliminate users' anxiety about pure electric vehicles.