A video that leaked from Tesla Gigafactory Texas in Austin shows a ton of large mega casting parts ahead of the expected start of Model Y production at the new factory.
Tesla is currently in the process of starting production at two brand new factories, Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas, almost simultaneously.
The timeline to production is unclear.
Officially, Tesla says it plans to start Modle Y production at each facility by the end of the year.
For Gigafactory Berlin, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla is aiming for production to start in October.
As for Gigafactory Texas, the timeline is not as clear, but production is expected to start relatively soon.
Now, a new video posted from Gigafactory Texas yesterday shows a rare look inside the manufacturing plant and confirms that Tesla has been busy using mega casting machine (hat tip to TezlaMick):
The video shows an impressive number of rear and/or front casting parts for the Model Y.
We reported earlier this year that Tesla took delivery of an Idra “gigapress” at Gigafactory Texas, and soon after, the giant machine was spotted in operation for the first time in a drone video.
In May, Tesla produced the first Model Y megacast at Gigafactory Texas.
Based on this new shaky video, it looks like Tesla now has hundreds of them at the factory ahead of production.
Tesla is expected to use those giant casting parts to build its new vehicle platform with its structural battery pack.
Tesla structural battery pack
At its Battery Day event last year, Tesla unveiled not only its new 4680 battery cell but also a new battery architecture built around the new cell.
Inspired by the aerospace innovation of building airplane wings as fuel tanks instead of building the fuel tanks inside the wings, Tesla decided to build a battery pack that acts as a body structure, linking the front and rear underbody parts.
Currently, Tesla builds battery packs by combining cells into modules, which, when put together, form a battery pack. That battery pack is installed into the vehicle platform.
The difference with this new concept is that Tesla is not using modules and instead builds the entire battery pack as the structural platform of the vehicle, with the battery cells helping solidify the platform as one big unit.
Using its expertise in giant casting parts, Tesla can connect a big single-piece rear and front underbody to this structural battery pack.
This new design reduces the number of parts, the total mass of the battery pack, and therefore enables Tesla to improve efficiency and ultimately the range of its electric vehicles.
Earlier this year, we obtained the first picture of Tesla’s new structural battery pack made with 4680 cells.
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