The Real Reason Tesla Developed the Giga Press | EV Game-Changer 🚗⚡ | AI Revolution - video Dailymotion

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Tesla didn’t just build the Giga Press to impress—it built it to revolutionize car manufacturing. 💡 The Giga Press is a massive high-pressure die-casting machine that produces large sections of Tesla vehicles in a single shot—a move that’s changing the entire auto industry.  The real reason behind this innovation? Speed, simplicity, and cost-efficiency. By replacing dozens of welded parts with one giant cast piece, Tesla reduces production time, lowers costs, and increases structural strength 🏎️💪.  This leap allows Tesla to scale faster, build lighter, more durable cars, and lead the charge toward affordable mass-market EVs 🌍🔋. It's not just about building cars—it’s about building a new way to build.  The Giga Press isn’t just a machine—it’s a symbol of how Tesla is reinventing the factory itself.  #Tesla #GigaPress #ElonMusk #EVRevolution #ElectricVehicles #AutoInnovation #FutureOfManufacturing #TeslaTech #CarIndustry #MassProduction #EVTech #SustainableMobility #TeslaModelY #FactoryOfTheFuture #CleanEnergy #SmartManufacturing #Gigafactory #EngineeringBreakthrough #AutoIndustry #InnovationInMotion

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00:00Let's talk about the Gigapress. This is essentially Tesla's current secret weapon

00:06for electric vehicle manufacturing superiority. There is an entirely new way to make the core

00:13structure of an automobile. It's a technology that didn't even exist until the year 2020,

00:20and so far it has been exclusively wielded by Tesla in their quest to refine the manufacturing

00:27process of their best-selling vehicle, the Model Y. At its heart, the Gigapress is a die-casting

00:34machine, which is not a new or unique process. Casting has been a staple in automotive manufacturing

00:42throughout the entire history of the industry. The casting process is used to form critical

00:48components like the engine block and the transmission casings, but casting has never been implemented

00:55for a large structural section of the vehicle frame. Luckily, some very smart people at an

01:02Italian die-casting machine producer called IDRA made the connection that engine blocks and cylinder

01:08heads would no longer be required vehicle components in 10 years from now when electric

01:14motors and batteries will dominate. So, if the company was to stay relevant and remain on the

01:20cutting edge of their industry, then they would need to push the technology further than ever before.

01:27They had to go bigger. To take casting to the Giga scale. And that is where the very smart people

01:34at IDRA linked up with the very smart people at Tesla and the Gigapress was born. And here is why that's

01:41such a big deal. One of the coolest things about the Gigapress is the collaboration between two very

01:53cool companies who are relentlessly committed to innovation. The IDRA Group was founded in Italy in

02:001946 and has basically set the standard for die-casting technology in Europe. In 2008, the company was

02:08strategically acquired by LK Technology in Hong Kong, but IDRA still operates, designs, and manufactures

02:15their product out of Italy. There's a bit of conflicting stories around how the Gigapress idea

02:21came to be. Elon Musk says that he called the six largest casting machine manufacturers in the world

02:27and asked them if they could build a machine large enough to allow Tesla to cast their vehicle frames

02:33in one single shot. According to Elon, five of those companies said no, and one said maybe.

02:41According to Ricardo Ferrario, the general manager of the IDRA Group, the idea came to him in a dream,

02:48and he woke up with the mission to create the world's largest casting machine.

02:53Both are pretty good stories. There's always some selective memory going on with these kinds of

02:58things, and the two leaders are actually very similar. Riccardo is a boss. He takes his mission

03:04statement from the legendary Italian Formula One driver, Mario Andretti, who said,

03:10if everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. The Gigapress was his opportunity

03:16to step on the accelerator. Riccardo is a proper Italian, so he wanted his product to be the most

03:24powerful, the most efficient, the most sustainable casting machine ever built, but he also wanted it

03:30to look beautiful. And that's why IDRA goes to the extra length to color the giant components of the

03:37Gigapress and add those pops of bright red to give it that unique, stylized look. Riccardo said he wanted

03:45to make the Ferrari of casting machines, something that would be instantly recognizable and iconic.

03:51And I'd say he's done it. The reason it's so hard to scale up a technique like casting

03:58is because it's a very finely balanced thermodynamic process that is done under very high levels of

04:05pressure. Molten aluminum is pressed into a dye mold at high speed, and that liquid metal has to fill

04:12the mold perfectly and evenly before cooling into a singular strong component. The larger and more

04:19complex the mold, the further the metal has to travel, and the greater the chance that something

04:24will go wrong. If they press too fast, there will be bubbles in the metal, and the structure will be

04:30ruined. If they press too slowly, then the metal will cool before the dye is filled, and the part will

04:36be incomplete and uneven. This is all contained in one giant machine that is basically the size of a

04:44small house. There is a melting oven where solid aluminum is liquefied at a temperature of 850 degrees

04:51Celsius or 1600 Fahrenheit. Then the mixture is purified by removing the slag or aluminum oxide

04:59from the top. The molten aluminum is then held in a warming oven at 750 degrees Celsius, where it's treated

05:06with argon gas to remove impurities and moved through a silicon carbide filter to remove any particles

05:14larger than 25 micrometers. The dye mold is prepared with a thin coating of soybean oil, just like greasing

05:22your baking pan, and then a vacuum is used to remove air from inside the mold. The metal is pumped in,

05:30and the casting is formed. The clamp releases the two halves of the mold, and a robot picks up the

05:36casted section, which has now cooled to 400 degrees Celsius or 750 Fahrenheit. Then the part goes into a

05:43water bath to bring down to a reasonable temperature. Finally, the excess material is trimmed from the

05:50casting, and it is x-ray checked for quality. The energy required to push all of the hot metal through

05:57the mold then creates a large amount of pressure to build up inside. And that pressure will try to

06:03push the two halves of the mold apart as it is filling up. So one of the primary functions of

06:09the casting machine is to hold the dye mold together under those extreme pressures. That's how we measure

06:16the strength of a casting machine. By the amount of clamping force it can exert on the dye to keep it in

06:22one piece. If that dye were to break apart during the casting, then molten aluminum would probably

06:29squirt everywhere. It would be a disaster. The largest amount of clamping force from a traditional

06:34casting machine is 4,000 metric tons of pressure. Idra have produced machines of this caliber for a

06:41while, and we can actually see the full spec sheet on one of those, which has some interesting details.

06:47So the clamping force is rated at 4,000 metric tons. And the other interesting numbers are the

06:53maximum injection stroke. That's the distance the plunger travels as it injects the hot metal

06:59into the dye. In this case, it's 1,272 millimeters or 54 inches. And the maximum injection force, which is

07:08241 metric tons. So the force of the plunger that injects the metal is nowhere near as strong as the

07:16clamping force that holds the two halves of the dye together. I think a lot of people get this

07:22wrong. I definitely have gotten it wrong in the past. So a 6,000 ton casting machine does not use

07:286,000 tons of force to push the metal into the mold. Nowhere near that, actually. The 6,000 tons of

07:35force is what contains the metal inside the mold as it's being injected. And that is the level that the

07:43first Idra Gigapress was able to reach 6,000 tons of clamping force, a 50% increase over their previous

07:51best. This allowed Tesla to cast the entire front and rear sections of their Model Y frame. So

07:59basically, the entire frame from the driver's feet forward is one single casting, and the entire frame

08:06from the backseat passenger's feet backward is one single casting. In between is a new battery pack

08:13that is designed to act as its own structural component, thanks to much bigger and stronger

08:19battery cells. Idra has since ramped up their Gigapress to as much as 8,000 and 9,000 metric tons

08:27of clamping force. The 9,000 ton Gigapress will be making its way to Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas,

08:34where it will cast the rear underbody frame for the Cybertruck. So why would anyone want to go

08:41through all of the trouble of using a gigantic super powered casting machine to build their vehicle

08:49frame? There are many reasons, but they can all be summed up by just saying efficiency. There is no

08:57substitute in manufacturing for the efficiency of casting. Your typical vehicle frame will be made up

09:03of stamped components. Stamping is much more simple than casting. It's basically just what it sounds

09:10like. They take a flat sheet of metal, and they stamp down on it with a very specifically shaped

09:15tool, and that forms the metal into a part. Then you take a few dozen of those stamped parts,

09:21and you start welding and riveting and even gluing them together to create the frame.

09:26It's quite a production. So the Gigapress cuts that all down to one giant machine using one high

09:33powered action to create the same end product, except better and more consistent. Because every

09:41time you bond two pieces together, you create a potential point of failure and a potential for

09:47a mistake. Elon Musk said in an interview that replacing the rear underbody assembly on the Model Y

09:54with a single casting allowed Tesla to go from making 70 small parts to one giant part, eliminating

10:02300 robots and reducing the required body shop space by 30%. And by implementing the front casting,

10:11that saved another 300 robots and another 30% of the space in the body shop. So when Tesla built out

10:19their new production lines at the latest gigafactories in Austin, Texas and Berlin, Germany,

10:24they saved installing 600 robots by instead using four gigapresses. And that allowed them to operate

10:32the entire production line in a significantly reduced footprint. This means faster production times and

10:40lower costs. And we can see this reflected in the company's financial results. Tesla's gross margin per

10:46vehicle in Q1 2022 was a staggering 32.9%. For any vehicle product, this is outstanding. But for an

10:57electric vehicle, this is just flat out insane. Earlier this year, Ford Motors admitted that they

11:04don't make any money from selling the electric Mustang Mach-E. In fact, they probably take a loss on most

11:11sales. Tesla's net profit for the fiscal year 2021 was up to 3.3 billion US dollars. That's just slightly

11:20behind Toyota, who made 3.93 billion dollars. Toyota sold nearly 10 million cars in 2021. Tesla sold just

11:31under 1 million. We can also look at a metric called cash conversion cycle. This is essentially the time

11:38that it takes the company to turn cash into a vehicle and then convert it back into cash. So from

11:44expense to product to profit, Tesla's cash conversion cycle for 2021 was negative 15 days, which basically

11:53means that inventory is sold before you even need to pay for it. By comparison, Toyota had a cash

12:00conversion cycle in 2021 of 31 days, and a competitor like Volkswagen was back at 74 days. So point being

12:10that Tesla do things differently, and they profit massively. That's probably not an accident. And game

12:18changer innovations like the Gigapress is what keeps them at the top of their league. Hopefully you learned

12:24something today about Tesla, IDRA, or the Gigapress. Let us know in the comments section below what you

12:30think Tesla might try and cast next. Will they ever do an entire vehicle in one shot? Don't forget to

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13:00Thanks for watching, and we'll see you in the next one.

The Real Reason Tesla Developed the Giga Press | EV Game-Changer 🚗⚡ | AI Revolution

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