The 16,000 Ton Giga Press Is A Massive Marvel of Engineering For Single Castings - It Takes 120 Days to Assemble

The 16,000 Ton Giga Press - A Marvel of Engineering

If you're not following Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt on X.com, he's one guy you should if you want a flood of news about Tesla. Many times, he will post something and I get an idea for an article just from that post.

In this case, he posted about the 16,000 ton giga press, and I was blown away. It's a huge, giant, massive machine and a marvel of engineering. I couldn't believe that it takes 120 days to assemble and commission for use. Wow!

The 16,000 ton giga press will most likely be used to create the single casting for the Model 2 or compact car. Nobody really knows for sure unless you are inside the Tesla factory using the machine with knowledge of what car gets the casting.

These giga casting machines give Tesla a competitive advantage in manufacturing, which is the most difficult part of reaching volume production for any large product, like a car. Elon Musk has stated this numerous times, so it's no wonder Tesla is acquiring more of these giga presses.

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What Is the 16,000 Ton Giga Press Used For?

The video is pretty incredible to watch. It shows a fly around of the giga press and shows the assembly. Enormous large plates are moved together and there are unprecedented challenges to assembling it.

The video mentions supreme technical expertise, re-engineering and upgrading. Since this is the largest giga press I've ever heard of, it makes sense that it would require a new set of skills to operate it.

There are highly integrated structural components in the giga press. When you look at it, it looks like enormous metal Lego pieces all fitting together to make it one machine.

When it operates, it breaks through with 160,000 kN of clamping force. It will be a driver for single piece casting technology, as mentioned in the video, which means the ideal candidate for this will be the compact or sub compact car (or both) for Tesla.

After I watched the video, I felt like I had watched an alien factory in motion. I don't understand how the new giga press is working, but I do know that Tesla does want to get to single castings one day to save time and money. This may be the machine that lets them get there.

I love to see the giga press evolve over time to improve manufacturing. What will future versions of the giga press look like even beyond this?

This 16,000 ton Giga Press is massive. It takes 120 days of assembling and commissioning. pic.twitter.com/Hr9fWEBTlN
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) November 10, 2023

In Other Tesla News: A surprising reason, Tesla is transporting its cars by truck in Sweden.

What do you think about the 16,000 ton giga press? Will it be used for single castings?

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Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News. Image Credit, LK Machinery, Screenshot