Tesla's Secret Master Plan To Cut Production Costs Revealed

Two sources said that these new manufacturing techniques would make it possible for Tesla to develop a new car from scratch in around 18-24 months instead of the usual three to four years. All five sources said that Tesla's entry-level EV could be the beneficiary of the technique that combines the front and rear sections with the underbody. Tesla is at such an advanced stage with the technique that it could make a decision on whether to progress with the idea as early as this month.

Central to Tesla's breakthrough is how the massive molds to make these large parts are designed and tested. Casting specialists from the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan were called in to assist Tesla.

Casting large structures has always been efficient but is expensive; once a large metal test mold is made, any machining tweaks during the design process could cost as much as $100,000. To get around this, Tesla sought the help of companies that make test molds from industrial sand with 3D printers. Sand casting has far lower costs, and the design validation cycle using this method takes two to three months instead of up to a year with metal mold alternatives.

Tesla also overcame another potential drawback whereby the new technique didn't meet its crashworthiness criteria. This related specifically to the aluminum alloys used to make the castings and how they behaved with sand. Special alloys, fine-tuning of the molten alloy cooling process, and an after-production heat treatment process got the engineers around this.

Since Tesla'sentry-level EVis smaller and has minimal overhangs, it's the perfect starting point for these new production techniques. There are still some issues to iron out, such as the type of gigapress Tesla would use if it does cast the underbody in a single piece. The automaker is gradually overcoming each obstacle, though, and seems poised to once again leap ahead of competitors just as they're catching up. Ford, for example, said its next electric pickup,Project T3, will be produced at an assembly plant with "efficiencies never before possible" and that the vehicle will have a "fraction of the complexity from previous truck programs." This new Ford pickup is only going into production in 2025, however. By then, Tesla may have once again rewritten the production rulebook.