IDRA Group General Manager Riccardo Ferrario revealed in a recent video that the Italian Giga Press maker has received the first order for a new 8,000-ton Giga Casting machine. Although he did not name Tesla in the video directly, he mentioned a world-leading electric automaker which is definitely none other than Tesla (TSLA).
According to GM Ferrario, the order for the new Giga Casting machine was just secured on March 16th.
“Once again, IDRA makes a world’s first for technological innovation, and we are very proud to announce that today, on the 16th of March 2021, we’ve been able to secure the first order for an 8,000-ton die-casting machine. This order is being placed by a leading global manufacturer for new energy vehicles,” said IDRA Group GM Riccardo Ferrario.
Tesla already purchases the 6,000-ton Giga Press machines for the Model Y single-piece front and rear underbody castings from IDRA Group. These 6,000-ton Giga Presses are already the world’s biggest Giga Casting machines that Tesla recently featured in a closer-look video.
However, an 8000-ton Giga Casting machine is required to put together the rear underbody of the Tesla Cybertruck. The body of the Cybertruck is a unibody shell or exoskeleton made of 30X series cold-rolled stainless steel but still, large underbody parts need to be die-cast in a single-piece to accelerate and simplify production.
“This giant machine will be used for the production of chassis components of larger vehicles such as pickup trucks, full electric lightweight goods vehicles, and SUVs. It is a maestro, and not only shows the capabilities of IDRA’s technical superiority but also validates the many, many years of hard work that have gone into realizing this project,” Ferrario further stated.
His use of the term ‘pickup trucks’ clearly indicates that it will be used for the Cybertruck. During the Q4 2020 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also said that the Cybertruck manufacturing will require an 8000-ton Giga Press, and the automaker will soon order it.
Tesla laid the foundations of the Cybertruck Giga Casting machines at Gigafactory Austin, Texas earlier in January.
Giga Texas has currently only 3 foundations set for the installation of the 8,000-ton Giga Casting machines as we can see in the following aerial photo before the roof construction took place over this area.
These foundations for the 8,000-ton Giga Press are different from the 6,000-ton Model Y footings made at the Gigafactory Berlin. Besides being larger, these have different shapes as well (L shape for Model Y 6k-ton, Z shape for Cybertruck 8k-ton Giga Press).
The Giga Press that IDRA showed in the announcement video (above) has the model number OL 6100 CS written on it, this is probably the 6k-ton machine that is already functional at the Tesla Fremont factory and Giga Shanghai for Model Y production.
Since the foundations are in place and the building construction of the Giga Berlin is in full swing along with the 8,000-ton Giga Casting machines ordered, we just might witness the Cybertruck production happening later this year as Elon Musk said earlier.
Related: Tesla is trying to make real cars with unibody casting just like toy cars are made, says Musk | Watch the 6,000-ton Giga Casting machine in action
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I am surprised that there was no mention of aluminum parts. Since China is the largest producer of aluminum in the world, that could prove to be complicated. Great article.