After starting production of mega casts and structural battery packs for the Model Y built at Gigafactory Texas, Tesla plans to offer the same technologies on vehicles produced in Giga Berlin before the end of this year.
By implementing front and rear mega casts, as well as structural battery packs on the Tesla Model Y made in Germany, the automaker will see production costs decrease as the number of parts and assembly operations will be lower.
Tesla announced the move in its Q3 2022 Shareholder Deck last week.
"At Gigafactory Texas, we have begun production of Model Ys since early this year that use front and rear body castings in conjunction with a structural battery pack. Castings of this size have never been mass-produced before in any industry by anyone except Tesla in our Fremont and Shanghai factories. […] We plan to introduce front castings and structural battery packs at Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg before the end of this year."
Tesla uses 6,000-ton Giga Press machines built by Italy's IDRA to produce the massive castings for the Model Y's front underbody and rear underbody.
Gallery: Tesla Giga Berlin (Tesla Gigafactory 4)
The EV maker noted that part of the challenge of making such large castings and thus eliminating more than 170 separate components is that "all the aluminum needs to be injected into a die in about one-tenth of a blink of an eye, through a single point of entry, without solidifying or distorting."
As for the structural battery pack's introduction to Giga Berlin, it suggests that Tesla is also preparing to start rolling out 4680 battery cells at the German plant for use in Model Y vehicles—although the source of the cells is unclear.
During the last earnings call, the EV maker said that 4680 cell production tripled in the third quarter of 2022 and continues to improve. For now, Tesla is focusing on expanding 4680 production capacity in North America and will start to incorporate 4680 cells in Model Y vehicles made at Giga Texas.
Meanwhile, the vehicle production ramp at Giga Berlin continues, with Tesla announcing in its Q3 earnings report that it reached a production capacity of more than 2,000 Model Ys per week. The automaker has set a target for 5,000 units per week before the end of 2022-beginning of 2023.
