This innovation forms part of Tesla’s “unboxed” manufacturing strategy outlined by Musk earlier this year, whereby the company can produce millions of affordable EVs at a rapid rate while still turning a profit. Already, the way the Model Y is assembled has left legacy manufacturers stunned – Toyota went so far as to call the electric crossover a “work of art” when it conducted a teardown of the model.
Under its new strategy, Tesla would make large sub-assemblies of a car simultaneously before snapping them together. This ability to gigacast most of an EV’s underbody would change the way cars are designed and built. That’s according to Terry Woychowski, president of US engineering company Caresoft Global. “It is an enabler on steroids,” said Woychowski. “It has a huge implication for the industry, but it’s a very challenging task. Castings are very hard to do, especially the bigger and the more complicated.”