A chunk of producing information from Tesla Motors caught our eye, that Elon Musk’s automobile firm plans to die-cast main underbody buildings — in impact the chassis — for its vehicles. All of the elements beloved of the favored tech press are there, a loopy new manufacturing expertise coupled with the Musk pixie mud. It’s undeniably a really cool course of involving a set of giant presses and superior 3D-printing for the sand elements of the mould, however is it actually the breakthrough it’s depicted as? Or has the California firm merely scored one other PR hit?
We produced an outline of die casting earlier within the 12 months, and the customized sand moulding within the Tesla course of sounds to us a type of half-way home between conventional die casting and extra standard foundry moulding. I don’t doubt that the ensuing massive elements will probably be sturdy sufficient for the job because the Tesla engineers and metallurgists could have achieved their work to a excessive customary, however I’m curious as to how this course of will give them the sting over a extra conventional automobile producer constructing a monocoque from pressed metal. The Reuters article gushes a few quicker growth time which is little doubt true, however for the reason that days of Henry Ford the automakers have repeatedly perfected the method of creating mass-market vehicles as cheaply as doable. Will these forged assemblies be capable to compete with pressed metal when utilized to a lot lower-margin small vehicles? I’ve my doubts.
Other than the extreme highway noise of the Tesla we had a trip in over the summer time, if I had a want record for his or her engineers it might embody giving their vehicles some longevity.
Header: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0.