Wow, took a weekend off from the thread and there is no hope of catching up. Now I know what others feel like joining here.
In other news, I am glad I never updated my signature after my last generic October EDD. I figured it would come back and be relevant again; I was right!
I read 2-3 of the last pages and my thoughts on Giga Austin build quality: Tesla learns from mistakes. This is after all the learnings from Fremont, Shanghai, and (though not live yet) Berlin. I think it is likely that alone creates a significant reduction in the build quality issues during past production ramps. Besides that, I have done some quick research and couldn't find anything that backed this with data, so take the following as just my opinion following some of my logic: I think casting in and of itself reduces possibilities of build issues. It will obviously not effect paint quality, but by the nature of die casting I would expect you can be fairly certain that fits remain the same, time after time, because of the process. I think that could have an impact on panel gaps and alignment issues. Add in that it is a significant reduction in the number of parts that need to be put together which allows for more time spent in other areas, and I think build quality issues will continue to decrease. I would love if someone has any precision data of stamping vs die-casting to support or argue this, but I was unsuccessful in finding any.