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☆ This Chinese company may be emulating Elon Musk's Tesla playbook
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-09 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewAt the start of the year, Elon Musk issued a clear warning about who he thought posed the biggest challenge to Tesla's electric vehicle ambitions: Chinese EV makers. Kyle Chan, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton, recently drew attention to how Xiaomi's EVs have been made with machines similar to the "giga press" machines Tesla uses in its die-casting process. AdvertisementWhen Tesla entered China, it helped Chinese firm LK Group develop the world’s largest casting machines to make Tesla parts. Later, LK sold similar casting machines to 6 Chinese firms, likely automakers. However, LK's die-casting expertise was no longer limited to Tesla after 2022, as the company was reported to have struck deals with six other Chinese companies to supply casting machines to them.

Persons: —, Elon Musk, Tesla, Musk's, Lei Jun, Xiaomi, Kyle Chan, Chan, LK, pWQsy2KC7d — Kyle Chan, Liu Siong, Tesla's, LK's, there's Organizations: Service, Business, EV, Xiaomi, Princeton, Group, New York Times, Tesla, LK Group, giga Locations: Beijing, China

☆ The UAW strike and the inexorable math of electric vehicles
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-17 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

EVs have fewer parts than gas-powered vehicles. This means fewer jobs in the industry. That means fewer jobs because EVs are much simpler and therefore easier to assemble. Higgins wrote a book about Tesla, called Power Play, that expertly explains how the company developed a more efficient vehicle manufacturing process. The Tesla Giga Press is a giant machine that uses aluminum die casting to make much larger vehicle parts.

Persons: Stellantis, Tesla, I've, Jim Farley, Carl Court, Elon Musk, Tim Higgins, Higgins Organizations: GM, Ford, EV, Service, Bloomberg, Congressional Research Service, Labor, Auto, Financial Times, UAW, Street, Tesla, Shanghai, Giga, Tesla Giga Press, Toyota, Hyundai, Reuters Locations: Wall, Silicon, Dagenham , England

☆ Why are other automakers chasing Tesla's 'Gigacasting'?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Here's a look at Gigacasting and how the innovation is forcing automakers to scramble to match Tesla:WHAT IS GIGACASTING? The Giga Press is an aluminium die-casting machine adopted by Tesla at its factories in the U.S., China and Germany. The house-sized machines are able to produce aluminium parts far bigger than anything used before in auto manufacturing. Toyota said it expected that using aluminium die-casting would eliminate dozens of sheet metal parts from assembly and reduce waste. The global aluminium die-casting market was worth almost $73 billion last year and is projected to top $126 billion by 2032, showed an AlixPartners analysis.

Persons: Matthew Childs, Tesla, Elon Musk, Zeekr, Kevin Krolicki, Christopher Cushing Organizations: REUTERS, Toyota, Giga Press, EVs, WHO, Industries, Buhler Group, HK, General Motors, Hyundai Motor, Volvo, EV, Thomson Locations: London, Britain, U.S, China, Germany, Italy, Europe, Japan, Gothenburg, Sweden

☆ Factbox: Toyota unveils battery, production innovations for new EVs
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Toyota released a technology briefing, including details on new solid-state batteries, a day before its annual shareholder meeting where governance, climate lobbying and EV strategy are under scrutiny. Here are Toyota's key announcements:BATTERY TECHNOLOGYToyota has a number of initiatives to improve battery performance and reduce cost, and said it was ready to move from research toward production of solid-state batteries. It aims to sell vehicles powered by solid-state batteries by 2027 or 2028. Toyota said, without providing details, it had achieved a "technological breakthrough" overcoming problems previously identified with solid-state batteries' durability. Those chips promise to reduce power loss to the electric motor of an EV by up to 50%, Toyota said.

Persons: Daniel Leussink, Kevin Krolicki, Christopher Cushing Organizations: Toyota, EV, Tesla, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi, Denso, Thomson Locations: TOKYO, U.S, Tokyo, Singapore

A new EV platform, if implemented, would be the result of a far-reaching review of Toyota's electric-car strategy undertaken last year. Its current production architecture, the e-TNGA system, was launched in 2019 and produces electric vehicles on the same assembly line as gasoline cars and hybrids. The briefing was given by the former chief competitive officer tasked with the EV strategy review, Shigeki Terashi, according to the person. So far it has fallen short - its initial battery EV, the bZ4X, suffered an early recall and has had only limited sales. GM sold more than 20,000 electric vehicles during the first quarter while Toyota and its luxury brand Lexus sold about 1,880 battery electrics.

☆ Exclusive: Tesla readies revamped Model 3 with project 'Highland' -sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/2] A Tesla Model 3 sedan, its first car aimed at the mass market, is displayed during its launch in Hawthorne, California, U.S. March 31, 2016. Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory will put the redesigned Model 3 into production in the third quarter of 2023, they said. CHANGE YOU CAN SEEThe redesign for the Model 3 builds on the revamp of the Model S -- Tesla’s premium EV sedan -- that was released last year. The Model 3, Tesla’s cheapest EV starting at just under $47,000 in the United States, had been the automaker’s best-seller but is being overtaken by the Model Y crossover. KEEP IT SIMPLEMusk has pushed a simplified approach to design and production at Tesla that the Highland project extends, said the people with knowledge of the development.

☆ EXCLUSIVE Tesla plans mass production start for Cybertruck at end of 2023-sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Tesla said last month that it was working on readying its Austin, Texas plant to build the new model with “early production” set to start in the middle of 2023. “We’re in the final lap for Cybertruck,” Musk told a conference call with financial analysts. CRACKED WINDOWSMusk introduced Cybertruck in a 2019 reveal where the vehicle’s designer cracked the vehicle’s supposedly unbreakable “armor glass” windows. The company has pushed back production timing three times since: from late 2021 to late 2022, then to early 2023 and most recently to the mid-2023 target for initial production. Musk said then the company had "more orders of the first Cybertrucks than we could possibly fulfill for three years after the start of production."

☆ Exclusive: Tesla plans mass production start for Cybertruck at end of 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Nov 1 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O) aims to start mass production of its Cybertruck at the end of 2023, two years after the initial target for the long-awaited pickup truck Chief Executive Elon Musk unveiled in 2019, two people with knowledge of the plans told Reuters. Tesla said last month that it was working on readying its Austin, Texas plant to build the new model with “early production” set to start in the middle of 2023. “We’re in the final lap for Cybertruck,” Musk told a conference call with financial analysts. The company has pushed back production timing three times since: from late 2021 to late 2022, then to early 2023 and most recently to the mid-2023 target for initial production. In January, Musk had cited shortages in sourcing components as the reason for pushing the launch of Cybertruck into 2023.

☆ Exclusive: Toyota scrambles for EV reboot with eye on Tesla
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Norihiko Shirouzu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

As part of the review, Toyota is considering a successor to its EV-underpinning technology called e-TNGA, unveiled in 2019. TESLA AS BENCHMARKThe review was triggered in part by the realisation by some Toyota engineers and executives that Toyota was losing the factory cost war to Tesla on EVs, the sources said. Toyota designed e-TNGA so that EVs could be produced on the same assembly line with gasoline cars and hybrids. The person leading Toyota's EV review is Shigeki Terashi, former chief competitive officer, according to six people with knowledge of the work, including two people close to Toyota. The recognition within Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, that Tesla has set a new benchmark for EV manufacturing costs marks a major reversal.

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