Elon previously described a vision of radically transforming the factories that build his cars. In 2016, Elon had the goal of making his factories ten times more productive every ten years. Elon wanted to transform his factories every two years. It appears that Elon still has something close to this goal.
The Maxwell Technologies purchase and transition to dry electrode batteries can be built with 16 higher density in the factory.
Tesla has patents to transform the wiring of electric cars. This will make it easier to automate more of the production of the Tesla cars. Tesla Model S cars had 3000 meters of wiring harnesses and the Model 3 has 1500 meters of wiring. The goal is to use more wireless and other innovation to get the Model Y to 100 meters of wiring.
Another patent is where Tesla will build a special machine to cast the entire body frame of its cars with one piece instead of 70 parts.
Tesla will reduce the weight of the Model Y, reduce heat produced, lowers cost of vehicle with less labor and significantly drops capital expenditure on robots.
The patent describes casting machine with a central hub having a cover die portion and a plurality of ejector die portions translatable relative to the cover die portion and configured to meet at the central hub.
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Don’t know you would need a couple of panels or body damage would be interesting.
The problem with Musk is that you are never sure if you are looking at reality or the reality distortion field he projects.
Musk did not come close to factory innovation, not by a mile. His vision slowed production and caused more defects. So much for the real life Tony Stark. He’s assembling cars outside the factory under tents at one point. True innovation could be applied across the industry. It has not happened, at all! This guy throws out a ‘vision’, but who cares ? You don’t think other auto manufacturers have a vision too? People should take a critical look at the emporer and his new clothes. Think people, don’t just believe.
Less failure points.
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/07/15/2019-subaru-outback-legacy-recalled-bad-welds/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEbUwVbBDMUFbU81eFSsnTxd47Zeb27dPCIbniWTyKYAE4stiJ4KqDWi00sAPeWbbIBmIHudbTnmgsKkcoJmqW4xtIYzhH-vCFbNV44lkdHyUDfkBL9DN8v919BhAZcJfUQiMMQoZF8k_uy065ehFVqPF6C0Bu3I9SmMNCXeD5aU
That’s one of the very prominent reasons very expensive wood furniture -like tables- are made out of one piece.
What bothers me is that Tesla’s market cap is about equal to that of the major car manufacturers already.
Even if there’s no further dilution of the stock, they’ll have to start putting other car companies out of business to justify a higher stock price – and that’s ignoring whether they are currently worth that much based on future potential.
How is it different from a welded frame?
If they can achieve 100% energy density improvement and cost reduction, Tesla is going to be incredibly dominant.
The production process needs 1/16th the space, so 16x the production volume could be accomplished in the same space. The reason is that DBE process does not require drying ovens.
I expect producing cars to sell will likely become a loosing game for everyone, sooner rather later.
70 pieces get welded into one piece anyways
When Tesla is sold on the scrapyard we can hope others will take advantage of these many innovations.
the hand-me-downs still have a life after being totalled, they get sold for scrap/parts re-sale value, sometimes this is tens of thousands of dollars of potential worth to the buyers. some cars are saved in working condition and re-sold as salvage titles, others are shipped overseas and saved as they are still better than 90% of the existing market.
The second hand market is simply a different market.
What really screws the second hand market is licence agreements for software updates and ownership grey areas.
Tesla can be confusing because we do not know if it is producing cars to sell or to operate as taxis.
It isn’t profitable because it is busy growing. As long as it isn’t burning too much cash it will be OK.
Hate to break it to you but the entire frame of a car bends when you get hit. The machine at the shop will pull it all straight at once. No one has to the time to unbend the frame one piece at a time.
This is what every Engineer is suppose to do. In fact it is what everyone is suppose to do.
at some point even if tesla was a purchase target i think even in that worse case scenario people will make money
Which is fine, from the perspective of someone that bought the car new and is getting another. From the other end of the wealth spectrum, it fucks over the second hand car market, which is populated by loads of hand-me-downs that have been repaired.
If you accept the vision of a highly autonomous world preventing nearly all serious collisions, maybe cheap disposable cast frames that can’t be fixed make sense.
Dennis,
difference is is that Amazon doesn’t manufacture anything, Tesla does.
i am long Tesla, imho, it will be a giant
You bend the frame of a standard car and the insurance companies will declare it a total loss, even if you can drive away from the accident.
Isn’t it stupid to make a car frame from 1 part instead of 70 parts. A car will be unrepairable. You will have a small crash and bend some part and you will have to replace the whole frame.
It means they can produce 16 times as many in the same factory.
They also have about 30% higher energy density then current batteries, and claim to have a clear path to 100% higher.
Back in 2001 or so I thought about investing in Amazon. Then I saw their price/earnings was in the hundreds and ran away.
Of course, Amazon’s stock has skyrocketed. Their earnings were really low because they were reinvesting most of them into growing the business. Now they’re one of the world’s biggest companies.
Tesla is a growth company. Investing their profits into making themselves better is exactly what they should be doing.
(Whether that means their stock is a good investment at the current price, I have no idea.)
” transition to dry electrode batteries can be built with 16 higher density in the factory.”
What does that mean? The new battery has 16 times the energy density of existing batteries? The new batteries can be produced 16 times faster?
I dont think that this was referring to that one piece. I rather think that this is referring to the underlying frame, that the fenders (and other parts) are then attached to.
But even if it would be profitable in the medium to long turn, would it be profitable in the short term to make the entire body as one piece? Is this why Tesla never turns profitable, i.e. always chasing the ultimate technology over profit?
That is why I bought the stock. It will be worth a fortune in a few years instead of 20 years. As far as the maxwell battery I expect those to be released soon as a surprise change in the tesla cars. Can’t let the cat out of the bag till the cars with them are actually on sale. Everyone would just wait for the new maxwell batteries instead of buying the cars now.
ahh… automotive welding robots… who needs themselves… obsolete junk from Japan…
I love this: “Another patent is where Tesla will build a special machine to cast the entire body frame of its cars with one piece instead of 70 parts.”
so basically it’s like a giant hot wheels matchbox car…. fender bender… no problem…. there’s only on part to change… the car is all one giant fender.. would this be like replacing the skin on an old Nokia mobile phone…its standard black … no it’s parrot green with on click of a face plate…
A true artist!
Gotta love Musk, he’s a serial innovator. Nothing just stays the same, he always seems to look at things through a child’s eye, and wonder if it can be done…better.