"Unboxed" Gen 3 manufacturing Process

[THEbuz]

I can tell you he specifically said “Roadster” motors sent to Sparks and China. I didn’t ask him to clarify if he meant legacy Roadster or Roadster 2.0, as I assume/d TESLA hasn’t built any legacy Roadsters (i.e. on Lotus Elise gliders) for years and years now—nor is TESLA building parts (I assume) for legacy Roadster either. Can’t see TESLA employing whole teams to build 40-50 drive units for legacy Roadsters. Who knows, maybe management is employing disinformation by telling employees that is what the drive units are for, or perhaps “Roadster 2.0” is stamped right on them. I dunno… He definitely did not say anything about “Plaid”.

 

[Buckminster]

Elon also stated that the would complete Roadster design this year. Sounds like a significant design update - probably will switch to unboxed also.

 

[THEbuz]

What does “switch to unboxed” mean???

 

[mongo]

What does “switch to unboxed” mean???

Building the cars as front, side, and rear sections, then joining them at the end instead of the typical build the metal chassis, then pull off the doors; add all the other stuff, then put the doors back on.
From 2023 investors day:

 

[Buckminster]

Interesting article on the unboxing manufacturing process.

Includes quotes from several manufacturing and assembly experts, including Cori Steuben from Munto.

Tesla Rethinks the Assembly Line

Engineers at Tesla Inc. have developed a new process that they claim will reduce EV production costs by 50 percent, while reducing factory space by 40 percent.

www.assemblymag.com

 

[Buckminster]

Presumably would roll out on gen 3 unboxed first:
Tesla patents a new steer-by-wire system

 

[Buckminster]

It makes total sense for the unboxed process

No cooling and HV line running to the back of the vehicle, everything other than the battery pack are contained on the front module, motor, gear reduction, radiator, heat pump, octavalve or whatever else they use LV battery if that is there still, infotainment, steering motor, display

Almost everything that matter will be on the front module

And it allows it for a even bigger under trunk space since there won't be a motor there, and that counts when designing something more compact, add storage space while you shrink it

Only connection to other modules is low voltage, even the brakes with the brake by wire on the rear that also is a must for the unboxed process

 

[Buckminster]

I agree that Optimus won't replace Kuka directly in the near term. However, gigacastings have already halved? the number of Kuka/ABB robots. Unboxed will surely remove a lot more.

Tesla will surprise folk how quickly the lines can be built and ramped. Not having Kuka/ABB robots to setup is huge. No big outlay, no concrete pads, no precision placement, no software to write and rewrite, no cages, humans can make changes whilst line is running etc.

 

[UkNorthampton]

A video featuring Dr Know It All & his robot production line expert (name escapes me) took a concrete example of feeding a couple of machines in Tesla Shanghai, good example because human operator got ahead of themself, entered an exclusion/safety zone a bit early and had to reset safety system/restart. How many of these jobs? Rate of progress leads to slightly harder jobs being replaced. Once learned in one station/factory, easily adopted by others.

 

[Buckminster]

Shared by @Gigapress as a good video on wiring etc.

 

[Buckminster]

Interesting look inside giga Shanghai. The audio is in Chinese. I didn't understand any of it, but it shows a lot of different parts of the factory in action and I thought the background hum of the factory was cool.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1693418857774432335

Watching this shows you the huge opportunity that Tesla has to make improvements with unboxed. Lots of people and equipment still.

 

[Buckminster]

So $25k car plus Robotaxi will be common platform. There won' be so much infrastructure on the unboxed line so probably no need to share the line.

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1702300012921725356

 

[mongo]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1702300012921725356

The inital presentation used a Model Y CAD model for illustration. Having the front, rear, and rockers as one unit still allows parallel assembly and painting of the rest of the car. It would make interior access more difficult, but if the dash itself is a pre-assembled unit, that impact is minimal. They could even use fixturing with rocker recesses to create a flat work surface (though that doesn't help with vertical positioning).

Single piece lower frame removes frame misalignment/ tolerance issues also.

 

[FreqFlyer]

Elon also stated that the would complete Roadster design this year. Sounds like a significant design update - probably will switch to unboxed also.

Would actually makes sense for a low volume niche car.

 

[Buckminster]

LK Machinery is introducing their 16k ton Die-casting machine either today or tomorrow (unsure of what timezone Edward Tse is in). What could a 16k ton be used for? Who do you think would make use of it?

LK 16,000T Die Casting Showcase | Edward Tse posted on the topic | LinkedIn

Seeing is Believing! ð Tomorrow, we're taking the wraps off the LK 16,000T Die Casting Machine, and you won't believe your eyes! Witness the future ofâ¦

www.linkedin.com

View attachment 985133

Presumably not for gen 3 as it would contradict unboxed.

 

[Buckminster]

From Ft paywalled
Toyota takes on Tesla’s gigacasting in battle for carmaking’s future

 

[aronth5]

View attachment 988336
From Ft paywalled
Toyota takes on Tesla’s gigacasting in battle for carmaking’s future

Very informative diagram. Is there a link you could share?

 

[Buckminster]

Very informative diagram. Is there a link you could share?

Link at the bottom of my post.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Having more people working in parallel means workers' time is more efficiently used.

I call BS. It doesn't matter if you do task X and I do task Y on the same car at the same time or we do it on two different cars at the same time. It's still the same amount of time per task. Efficiency is the same. If unboxing allows individual tasks to be faster thanks to better access or something that helps. But parallel by itself doesn't buy you anything.