Posted on 03/17/2023 10:08:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
“Lithium is recognized as bad, and it is probably already on its way out.”
The article is about ingredients for the magnets in the motors, none of which are lithium. The lithium is in the batteries.
The article says mere grams of the rare-earth elements are used in current motors and the elements are not described as pollutants.
Tesla needs a bigger aluminum casting machine to build the cyber truck frame all in one piece. That is what is holding up production. The Italian company that built the machines that cast the car frames is making an even larger machine to cast the truck frame in a one piece uni-body.
This is the key to speeding up the manufacturing process.
Labor will be reduced when they start building the smaller vehicles in Monterrey, MEXICO.
This is where the newest gigafactory is being built.
EV’s are a solution looking for a problem.
Who’s going to want to work in Mexico, a crime-ridden country,and where, if you are employed, you have money, and that money invites criminals.
Relationship with Mexico is going downhill, with the border crisis and the fentanyl crisis and where control of the government is by the criminal cartes.
That battery factory may get closed as soon as it’s built.
Question: who makes the robots, and are the robots maintained by other robots, and are they cheap and breakdown-proof?
Labor is everywhere in a factory, and even robots require labor from humans.
You are missing the point of Tesla and how they build cars. They build cars like no other company, focusing on how the factory operates in order to reduce costs of building cars.
They have huge profit margins, and can continue dropping prices to market a $25,000 EV. The traditional ICE producers like GM and Ford lose money on every EV they sell, while Tesla can make up to $20,000 on each one - they plow the profits into expanding their factories.
Tesla is employing parallel building, while other companies use hundred-year-old assembly line practices. The old way is to have cars move on a single assembly line where parts are assembled, then later disassembled, while paint and other operations are done, then reassembled with a lot of wasted effort and idle employees. In parallel building, multiple assembly lines concentrate on different areas like front, sides, rear, bottom and top with little wasted effort and then all are integrated at the end. For instance, the floor is built as a single unit with battery pack, carpeting and seats, and then raised into the body at the end. The rear and front are built from single castings and have motors, electronics and drive train installed. The body is built separately, assembled and painted. All of it merges at the end. No other ICE company is doing this.
All while Tesla reduces weight, increases efficiency, and reduces costs. Not only of the car components, but reduces labor and materials and robots. Their factories are efficiently built.
That and copper, among other things.
You do realize that GM and Toyota and several other auto companies have been making vehicles in Mexico for 25+ years.
Every since NAFTA.
I’m not sure I understand your question. Tesla isn’t using 600 robots to make the castings - they eliminated the need for 600 robots. So the savings affect everything: Cost of the robots, the factory space, the electricity, and all the human labor to operate everything. The casting machines are the size of a house and cost like $10,000,000 but that is much less than 600 of the other robots.
The Tesla factory in Mexico will by built and operated by local workers. There may be a few supervisors and engineers from the U.S but I doubt that would be a large number. I would think that one of the main reasons to build a factory in Mexico would be to take advantage of very capable Mexican labor.
Whatever the economies for building Teslas, they will always be expensive to own. We were promised $35,000 to $40,000 per vehicle for Teslas about 8-10 years ago, and those vehicles ended up costing around $70,000-$75,000. So no, won’t believe a $$25,000 or $30,000 Tesla until it hits the market at those prices. I believe the promise last week was for $25,000 but now, it’s $30,000. I have no doubt that that price will jump to $50,000 or more by the time it hits the market.
“Tesla is employing parallel building, while other companies use hundred-year-old assembly line practices.“
What companies specifically are using 100 yr old assembly line practices? Anything I’ve heard from any company since the robots started in indicates that the straight assembly line is long gone. Parallel/robot is being used by other companies than Tesla. Who’s not using it?
Everyone other than Tesla. Can you cite other companies building cars with single casting rear and front frames? Or building integrated battery floors that are integral parts of the mid-frame? And the list goes on, where these components are merged together at the end of the assembly process. No other manufacturer is doing this. All manufacturers are using robots. What Tesla is doing is to eliminate many robots with their builds.
Have you priced offerings from other makers, for example GM and Ford? $100,000 for EV offerings from them. GM and Ford EV's will always be expensively using similar logic.
Yes, there's a lot of hype about Tesla. No different than the bs hype from Mary Barra at GM. Lots of promises from GM, no delivery. Just expensive Hummers and Lyriqs, if you can find one. The difference is that Tesla can deliver on the hype for a $25,000 EV in the next few years, and still make a profit. I do think EVs are too expensive, but don't single out Tesla on that. They're all expensive at this time. People with lots of spare money are the buyers.
CATL is the biggest battery manufacturer and they appear to be pushing forward with the sodium ion batteries despite only 80-90% (their claims) of the energy density of the lithium ion technology.
It will be a good trade-off because the cost of cobalt, nickel, and I believe lithium have risen 1500% in the past decade so economics is going to be the primary driver for different batteries.
From an environmental standpoint the sodium ion batteries are MUCH better than lithium ion. They are also far safer (fire).
Realistically, most EV drivers will be fine with a cheaper sodium ion battery because almost all EV usage is local commutes so “range” is not really the top priority outside of car magazines and YouTubers.
I know lots of people that would like to buy an EV, but simply can't afford one within their budget. Others brag about having bought an EV, and say they're saving money on not having to buy gasoline; which is a lie because they bought a $100,000 EV. Regular folks will buy ICE vehicles up to $30,000, because that's what they can afford. So ICE is going to be around for many years despite libs mandating the end of ICE sales by 2030 or 2035. Just plain stupid. Government should just let the free market decide what people will buy, and end dumb regulations.
I have no doubt Musk could perfect this tech and he already has the vehicles to deploy it. It’s likely available at a reasonable price too.
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