Tesla usually engages in various ranges of tomfoolery with its electrical vehicles.
Its broad assortment of quirky options features a “caraoke” mode built-in into the infotainment on a few of its Chinese language fashions, having the Mannequin X’s falcon doorways dance to the tunes of Christmas carols and a Cybertruck-inspired restricted version CyberHammer.
Seems such the gimmicks aren’t simply buyer going through. Tesla’s gigafactories even have some foolish labels for its machines.
Tesla has reinvented manufacturing.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s antics have diverted media consideration towards tradition wars, overshadowing a few of the firm’s outstanding improvements. Tesla’s gigafactories are the a few of largest EV manufacturing complexes globally and they do not comply with the textbook guidelines. It is an entire new method that is the envy of the remainder of the trade.
The Totally Charged Present’s Roland Tameling claims to be the primary journalist to get a tour of Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg.
The Berlin manufacturing facility is Tesla’s solely manufacturing website in Europe. It makes the Mannequin Y and the corporate claims it’s the model’s most superior and most sustainable manufacturing facility but, much more so than those in Nevada, Texas and Shanghai.
Tameling mentioned two industrial robots on this manufacturing facility are named after fictional characters Godzilla and King Kong.
Final yr, Tesla launched a thread on X detailing how a Mannequin Y is manufactured, from scratch to a fully-finished product.
An enormous a part of the method entails welding and bolting collectively the stamped physique panels and chassis castings produced from the well-known giga press.
600 robots are answerable for placing them collectively. When that’s accomplished, every physique is lifted into the paint store to a stage above by what Tesla says is among the largest industrial robots ever made. No surprise they named it Godzilla.
The video above reveals the yellow robotic arm, about as tall as a three-story constructing, pivoting by itself axis and effortlessly lifting the Mannequin Y. Rameling didn’t say what the operate of the robotic named King Kong was.
Quirky options apart, Giga Berlin appears to be like like it could possibly match a complete world inside. It spans throughout 1.2 sq. miles and is roughly the dimensions of 31 soccer fields, sufficient to suit 41 billion hamsters in it—one other certainly one of Tesla’s silly measurements.
It makes cells, battery packs and electrical drivetrain parts that go into the world’s finest promoting electrical automotive, the Mannequin Y. Its estimated capability is 375,000 items yearly.
Identical to Tesla EVs, Giga Berlin can be all about minimalism. “We deleted quite a lot of processes that aren’t actually crucial,” certainly one of Tesla’s paint store engineers mentioned within the video. “This provides us the opportunity of constructing an extended paint line to supply particular colours.”
He mentioned that the portray line is sort of 300 meters lengthy. Colours just like the Midnight Cherry Purple are solely painted at Giga Berlin.
Furthermore, the Mannequin Y’s rear underbody is a single part. A high quality management engineer mentioned the giga presses first soften aluminum at 700 levels Celsius after which flip the steel into a big giga casting.
This eliminates the necessity for 70 particular person elements. After the uncooked supplies enter the giga press, the casting comes out inside seconds, the engineer mentioned.
If you wish to see how the Godzilla robotic works, or are simply interested in how electrical vehicles are made, the video is price watching in full.
