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Tesla's Mega Castings Are Not Working Well for Giga Gruenheide: Over 60% of Rejects

You do not have to be a genius to realize that you will lose money if you have to test something to make money. After all, it may not work as planned. This is pretty much what seems to be happening at Giga Grünheide, which Elon Musk classified as a money furnace not long ago. Honestly, it is no surprise if it rejects 60% of the mega castings it is making there.
Tesla Giga Gruenheide would have 60% of its mega castings rejected 6 photos
Photo: via Machine Planet/Twitter
Tesla Giga Gruenheide would have 60% of its mega castings rejectedTesla Giga Gruenheide would have 60% of its mega castings rejectedTesla Giga Gruenheide would have 60% of its mega castings rejectedTesla Giga Gruenheide would have 60% of its mega castings rejectedTesla Giga Gruenheide would have 60% of its mega castings rejected
According to EFahrer, the problem is mainly with the rear frame casting. If that is true, it is nothing but ironic: that was the cast part Tesla first presented for the Model Y. In other words, it is the component that should be easiest to make because of the experience Tesla already has with it. For the same reason, it should be the one with the least rejects. And that is not the case.

These rejects would be why Tesla has recently halted production at its German plant. The official and unspecific excuse was to make adjustments and improve output. According to EFahrer, that did not go well.

Even after the casting machines were adjusted, the factory allegedly still loses 50% of the castings it makes. They can obviously be recycled, but we are not sure how much that costs nor if it is an easy process. The alloy Tesla uses does not need heat treatment: the castings can be extracted from the press as soon as they cool down a bit, as you can see in the video Tesla shared on Twitter.

In the text, the EV maker says that its “huge casting machines” enable it to make “full-size cars the same way toy cars are made.” That is neither entirely true nor something Tesla should brag about: most die-cast models have poor quality control. It is precisely due to not meeting the necessary standards that there are so many casting rejects at Giga Grünheide. If the EFahrer report is correct, any production increase should make it get a lot bigger, with 50% of the cast parts being discarded.


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Editor's note: The pictures in this article were taken in Fremont, not at Giga Grünheide. They are used here just for illustration purposes.

About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
Gustavo Henrique Ruffo profile photo

Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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