At Tesla's 2021Q4 earnings meeting, Musk announced a news that disappointed investors: Tesla will not release any new cars throughout 2021.
A few months before that, Musk had predicted on Twitter that he would update Tesla's product roadmap at the conference, when most people thought musk would bring good news about the Mass Production of Cybertruck and the $25,000-priced compact car.
Musk's explanation for this is quite sufficient, in short, the current automotive industry is facing industry capacity shortage, the delivery of existing models has been quite tight, at this time even if a new car is released, it can not build a few, simply do not release, and then pull up the production capacity of existing models first.
This year, Tesla's two new factories are the Berlin factory that just started delivery some time ago, and the other is the Texas factory that officially delivered the first batch of new cars today.
According to Tesla's design plan, the annual production capacity of the Texas factory will exceed 1 million vehicles in the future, and the production line here can produce one car every 45 seconds.
The current Model Y is 475 cm long, and if you calculate it according to this length, the giga Texas car is built at a speed of 11 cm per second.
A new generation of gigafactories
Giga Texas prequel escapes San Francisco
California is tesla's birthplace, but also the country's largest new energy vehicle market, in order to win Tesla's heart to invest in the factory, the California government in the bidding with other regions can be described as experienced layer after layer of "special" PUA, providing a lot of competitive preferential policies.
But at the end of 2021, Tesla moved its headquarters from California to the Texas Gigafactory, and Musk himself has already made his home in Texas.
Why move ? To put it bluntly, it's about saving money.
The biggest driver is underpayment, california's highest personal income tax of 13.3% is the highest in the United States, while Texas's is 0, and moving is good news for Tesla employees from the perspective of income. In addition, California's top corporate tax rate is 8.84%, compared to only 2.7% in Texas, and it is estimated that Tesla's headquarters will save billions of dollars a year after moving its headquarters from California to Texas.
Spcae X's launch site in southern Texas
Coupled with the high cost of housing and high cost of living in California, there are not many companies and talents that have fled California in recent years. At the same time, another benefit of moving to Texas is that Space X has a launch site in southern Texas, which is a better way for Musk to manage the two companies.
As a result, the Texas factory has become the focus of Tesla's next level of development, as a rapidly expanding technology car manufacturing company, the Texas factory can be described as a full consideration for future development, and the footprint is the most intuitive embodiment.
How can the factory be called "big factory"
At today's factory gathering in Texas, Musk said that the space in the California factory is no longer enough, Tesla needs a large enough place to build a factory, and Texas is undoubtedly the natural choice.
How big does Texas have to make Musk feel big enough? From this comparison map of the land occupation of Tesla's existing factory made by netizens, we can intuitively see it.
Comparison of tesla's six factory areas
The Texas plant covers an area of 8.5 square kilometers, and for comparison, the Berlin plant's 300-hectare footprint is only about a third of the Texas plant's, although the opening time of the two factories is only two weeks apart. Although the production capacity of the Shanghai factory is strong, it is more beautiful in terms of area compared with the Texas factory.
The main plant at the Texas plant is 1,166 meters long and erected 1.4 times the height of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. I have to say that Tesla will still play, take the length of the factory and the height of the building to make a comparison, but the actual effect is indeed intuitive, using a giant to describe the Texas factory is not exaggerated at all, is worried that one day will see the "Tesla built the world's tallest building" discussion on the Internet one day.
One of the most important considerations for the Texas plant to be so large is capacity. And compared to the size of the Texas factory, Musk spent more time today to introduce the advanced points of this plant.
The world's most advanced factory, Musk said
Speaking of the Texas factory, Musk, who has never been stingy about his own business, called it "the most advanced factory that can be seen on the earth", and Musk said that "the most advanced" does not simply refer to how large the scale is, but to the layout of the Texas factory.
Nowadays, to evaluate whether an electric vehicle is advanced, one of the perspectives is the degree of integration, the motor electronic control reducer is not all-in-one, the electronic and electrical architecture is distributed or centralized, the thermal management system is not multi-domain linkage, etc. Musk's evaluation of the super factory also introduces such standards, paying attention to the "Dense" integration.
Is used as a background board is Tesla California Fremont factory, the map on the red of the various departments and manufacturing links are in different buildings, quite a sense of distributed architecture, so the vehicle in the production process will have a lot of parts of the transportation link, thereby increasing the overall steps of the car waste valuable time, and then reduce the manufacturing efficiency and increase production costs.
Tesla's California factory, different manufacturing departments are under different buildings
As soon as the picture turns to the Texas factory, the whole factory area first gives people a different feeling, no longer "staggered" like the Fremont factory, but the whole link is included in an octagonal main building.
Tesla's Texas factory layout, all links and departments are in a building
On the lowest floor of the main building, the left side is the stamping workshop, the right side is the body die casting workshop, the two are welded on the middle body production line, riveted to complete the body-in-white part of the body and then enter the next part of the painting workshop.
The white body that has been sprayed enters the assembly workshop, where the body-in-white body will be assembled with the parts from the electric drive workshop, the plastic parts workshop, and the battery workshop, and a complete electric vehicle will be completed.
Inside the Texas factory, Tesla almost just built things in the previous link and then entered the next link of manufacturing assembly, there is no excess transfer in the middle, and even components such as batteries are manufactured directly in the factory and loaded into the battery pack, and then installed on the body. The blank space in the upper left corner is reserved for future production expansion. The Texas factory imports raw materials at one end, and the factory itself can complete the manufacture of a series of components such as batteries, electric drive systems, and bodywork, and then go through the rest of the assembly process, and the output at the other end is a complete vehicle.
The Texas plant can produce its own 4680 battery
Such a high degree of integration and vertical integration saves a lot of costs, while allowing the Texas factory theoretical design can do 45 seconds to go offline a Model Y, the traditional car companies usually need to build a car takes a few minutes, the factory manufacturing efficiency Tesla has opened up several times the gap with them.
Under this efficiency, the Texas factory after the completion of the climb after the planned annual production capacity of more than 1 million vehicles, Musk said that after the realization will be the world's largest single car factory, of which Model Y has a capacity of 500,000 vehicles, which in turn makes the Texas factory become the world's highest single model production capacity factory, while the battery factory in the factory will also become the world's largest single battery factory in the next few years, one of the three world's largest, efficiency and integration are self-evident.
The Texas plant is planned to have an annual production capacity of more than 1 million units
Speaking of efficiency, here we have to mention the transformative car manufacturing method announced by Tesla in 2020 - large-piece integrated die casting.
Front, middle and rear fight, get off the body to get it done
The rear body of the early Model Y models was manufactured by dozens of parts through complex welding and riveting, and the corresponding manufacturing process was complex, cumbersome, and relatively time-consuming.
Tesla is the first in the industry to apply large-piece integrated die-casting manufacturing technology, the entire body of dozens of parts through the high-pressure casting method directly simplified into one, greatly simplifying the manufacturing process, large die casting machine 80-90 seconds can produce a part, a day can produce 1,000 castings. In the traditional process, stamping and welding these 70 parts to assemble a component takes at least 1-2 hours. If you count the 70 module development cycles behind the 70 parts, the efficiency advantage of integrated die casting will be more obvious. In addition, the finished monomer parts that are finally die-cast also improve in weight reduction and mechanical properties.
Tesla demonstrated the one-piece die-cast molded parts on the Model Y
Not only that, through such manufacturing means Tesla also simplified the production line of the body manufacturing body, the original front and rear body production line each needed about 300 industrial robots, covering a large area, and now a large die casting machine can do the same thing.
At the event site, Tesla also once again showed everyone a large die casting machine from IDRA in Italy, and the application of this equipment has become the wind direction of the automobile manufacturing industry. At present, the Model Y produced by the Shanghai factory uses die casting parts in the rear body, and as a new factory, the Texas factory is consistent with the previous Berlin factory, and the front and rear body have been used with one die casting parts.
The Texas factory is better than the Berlin factory is the use of CTC integrated battery pack chassis, so that the entire car body of the Texas-made Model Y is basically divided into three parts: front, middle and rear, and such a structure may become another well-known "three-in-one" in addition to the electric drive system.
It is understood that tesla In Texas factory has 4 integrated die casting machines, model Y is mainly 6,000 tons (maximum pressure) specifications, follow-up production Cybertruck will use 8,000 tons of specifications, the future will also purchase 9,000 tons and above specifications of large die casting machines.
IDRA die casting machines on the event site
For Tesla, die-casting manufacturing is a multi-pronged approach to improving efficiency, body structural performance, and component consistency, as well as reducing manufacturing costs and equipment footprint, and the Texas factory continues to build on this manufacturing method.
However, the use of die-cast body and China sales for more than a year Model Y in this period of time also reflected several drawbacks of this technology, on the one hand, many users react to the vehicle's tailgate has low-frequency resonance, which Tesla officials have not made a specific explanation, but one of the possible factors is the single die-cast body caused by the body stiffness partially enhanced.
At the same time, if there is a large collision in the rear body of the Model Y, the part where the single die casting part such as the damaged side wall is located may also bring higher maintenance costs.
For this technology that has recently been applied, the possible problems may take more time to be fully exposed, but these are still undeniable in the industrial manufacturing perspective it is still fully advanced, and the current existing problems will be better solved with the popularization and application of this technology in the industry.
After the factory talks, it's time to talk about car-related things.
The rising star of the Gigafactory
The hidden protagonist of the party: 4680 battery cell
Nearly two years after Battery Day, the Texas plant finally mass-produced the long-awaited 4680 cylindrical battery.
4680 cell integrated battery pack structure diagram
Compared with the 1865 and 2170 cylindrical batteries, the 4680 battery is not only the size of the simple, the full pole ear technology allows the 4680 battery to effectively reduce the internal resistance, reduce heat generation, can take into account the energy density and power density, not only can have a longer endurance, but also support ultra-high power fast charging. The Texas plant also demonstrated for the first time today the full-pole ear electrode in the unwinding state of the battery.
Omnipolar ear electrodes
In addition, under the application of CTC technology, the battery pack itself has also become a force structure of the body, which is also easier to understand, the original only "outer packaging" force, and now through the structural design so that the battery and the shell have a closer mechanical cooperation, neatly arranged 4680 battery cell group also undertakes a part of the task of anti-torsion and bending.
Today, the seat of the Texan Model Y will be fixed directly above the seat bracket on the battery cover, and the production line of the battery pack will be reduced by half.
The one-piece battery pack has been integrated with the chassis
With the "three-in-one" chassis of the front, middle and triple, The first four-wheel drive standard Model Y model in Texas equipped with a 4680 battery cell achieved an EPA range of 279 miles (449 kilometers).
Note that this is the data for the two-motor four-wheel drive model Y model with standard endurance (small battery capacity), the data for the single-motor rear-drive standard endurance Model Y sold in the early US market is 244 miles (393 kilometers), and the EPA for the model 3 single-motor rear-drive model with lower wind resistance is 272 miles (438 kilometers).
That is to say, the Model Y with the 4680 battery cell in the Texas factory has achieved a longer endurance than the Model 3 under the premise of one more motor and a larger car.
Although the Model Y is not a new car, such an adjustment is no longer a step forward for the "small makeover" of traditional cars.
Cybertruck, Roadster 2, Semi, next year?
The Model 3 and Model Y are undoubtedly Tesla's most popular products at the moment, but if you want to ask us what Tesla's coolest car is, the answer is most likely Cybertruck.
I believe that everyone has a vivid memory of the plot of Tesla's chief designer Franz von Holzhausen smashing the glass "overturned" in 2019, when Tesla claimed that the glass was extremely hard and bulletproof, and the result was that it was broken twice by a steel ball during the demonstration.
Actually broken!?
The second time it was also broken
Today Franz came again, and in a conversation with Musk, he said that the glass had to be smashed once, and he had to give us Tesla a shame. But today seems to be no guy, so next time for sure.
Tesla chief designers Franz von Holzhausen and Musk at the event
For this pure electric pickup truck that jumped tickets for three years, the two of them brought goods on the spot again, indicating that the car is quite good, there will be a lot of surprises and cool features, the design of no door handle will be retained, and the vehicle can sense the passenger approaching and automatically open and close the door automatically. Franz even thinks that Cybertruck is the first, and when he buys it, he doesn't have to look at other pickups, so he almost said the sentence "All the other pickups here are XX".
It's good, but when will it be available?
Tesla's answer is 2023. Usually, manufacturers say Q1 then it must be the end of March, Tesla said 2023, that can only say that it is possible 2023. However, compared with the previous appearances, this time The Cybertruck already has a series of details that look more like a mass production car, such as rearview mirrors and giant wipers, plus the 4680 battery cell has begun mass production, and the credibility of this time should be regarded as the most reliable.
Rearview mirrors and giant wipers on the live Cybertruck
Live shots of Cybertruck's interior
The other two long-jump models are the Roadster 2, a pure electric semi-trailer, the former being Tesla's top truck with 0-96 km/h acceleration of 1.9 seconds and a top speed of 400 km/h, and the latter being a future truck with a maximum EPA range of 600 miles (996 km) and a fast-charging mode that can supplement the 644 km range in 30 minutes.
Tesla Semi pure electric semi-trailer truck
If these parameters of the Semi can be implemented on the $150,000 production model, it will undoubtedly subvert the commercial vehicle pattern in the logistics industry with a huge disparity in the cost of use.
Optimus robots at the event site
In addition, at the event site, we also saw the robot V1 Optimus unveiled at Tesla AI Day last year, Musk said that robots will completely solve the problem of labor shortage, and over time, Tesla's robot business even has the potential to surpass the car business. When Tesla's AI giants really train Optimus to replace human labor, Tesla's factory may be estimated to be robots in addition to machines.
Write at the end
Today is April 8, 2022, almost five years after the first release of tesla Roadster 2 and Semi, Franz at the launch of the Cybertruck is three years ago, even today, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the mass production of these cars. After listening to the "next time" for many years, Tesla product ticket jumping has now become a matter of common habit.
But this seems to have little impact, because looking at the global market in recent years, whether it is a car that has been mass-produced or will be mass-produced, there is still no one in the same type of product that can surpass these three models.
In other words, if you've placed an order during the conference and wanted to buy the world's most exciting and exotic electric car, then Tesla's "PPT models" can still meet this demand.
What is even more incredible is that the two top pillars that now support Tesla's sales, Model 3 and Model Y, are from 2016 and 2019 respectively, but even in 2022, there are still few electric vehicles in the same class that can compete with these two cars in terms of comprehensive strength, and this situation may continue.
Remember that Musk once bragged about his own products in 2019, saying that the Model S since 2012 is the world's best electric car, even after seven years, and there is no competitor that can be approached.
In such a rapidly iterative industry as automotive, only a few manufacturers have the ability to create such evergreen models, and the field of electric vehicles is even worse. This undoubtedly reflects Tesla's high level and comprehensive forward-looking ability in the long-term product strength, scale and overall industrial design of the model.
This is also why Tesla dares not build any new cars for three years after the Model Y, and can rank first among all manufacturers in new energy sales with 936,172 vehicles in 2021.
However, in the global automotive market, this achievement has only helped Tesla occupy a market share of more than 1%, and the target of 20% from the market share is as shown on the PPT and "A long way to go", and capacity expansion is Tesla's key goal in the past, at present and in the future.
Following the launch of its Berlin and Texas plants, Model Y has officially begun to push towards the goal of selling the world's single model annually. A $60,000 "electric daddy" is going to hit Toyota's top-notch Corolla in terms of global sales, and that's what we're experiencing now, maybe in the next two years or so. This process will accompany revolutionary changes in automotive manufacturing, while also driving the transformation of the global automotive and energy industries.
As an important player in this, Giga Texas will continue to accelerate this process by producing one electric vehicle after another at a speed of 11 centimeters per second.