8000 ton press already installed?

tmeyer3

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I know there has been talk about the 8000 ton high pressure die casting machine (giga press) required for CT production and whether or not it has been delivered. Based purely on the footage from the dedicated drone pilots watching giga Texas construction, there's really no conclusive way to tell if the press has or hasn't been installed. This post is simply my logic, sources, and general reasoning that suggests that this massive press has already been installed at giga Texas right under everyone's nose. No, there is no direct proof that I can find, but I think following the trail of the worlds biggest HPDC machine tells a different story.

First of all, I'm making the assumption that drone pilots will have seen the press, even if they didn't know if it was the 6k ton or the 8k ton, as it does require a crane to assemble and a lot of effort.

Facts:
1. Tesla officially ordered the giga press sometime in March of 2021.
2. The 8k press is completed and is fully functional prior to tesla's purchase. This is an important point I didn't realize until tonight!

3. The press shipping requires 24 days to get to Houston Texas and at least 2 weeks to disassemble and package.


Based on the information, technical requirements, and cost of shipping something so large and specialized, the shipping timelines are generally going to be very tight and monitored.
These facts give us a ballpark of 38-45 days for shipment after purchase, unless Tesla requested it not be shipped. But, I mean, I can't see Elon being ok with going slower, lol.
Since we don't know the exact order date, except for "March 2021," we'll just assume a range. That puts delivery between mid April to mid June.
Now there isn't any drone footage of extra large deliveries in that timeline, or until today for that matter! However, a very large giga press delivery can be seen in early April:

in the same video (same day), you can see an existing and already installed giga press (likely a 6k ton).

I think it is more likely that the CT press was shipped early and the purchase went through in March than not seeing delivery over a month past the latest prediction.

The final nail in the coffin for me is the most recent footage of the press wing at night:
The night shot provides a very clear view of a press that it clearly not the same press we're all used to seeing pumping out the model Y casting. If you look closely, these are different machines. Of course they could be just 2 different looking 6k ton presses, but I find it unlikely that IDRA would build the same machine twice with that many changes to it.

I think this happened under everyone's nose and that Jeff Roberts was right all along, the 8k ton press was installed back in the beginning of April.

Cheers!
Sponsored

 

JBee

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Brilliant work! Thanks for the informative post and references.

I think I will have to agree. Now we just have to find the test castings as further proof. :)
 

Dids

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I know there has been talk about the 8000 ton high pressure die casting machine (giga press) required for CT production and whether or not it has been delivered. Based purely on the footage from the dedicated drone pilots watching giga Texas construction, there's really no conclusive way to tell if the press has or hasn't been installed. This post is simply my logic, sources, and general reasoning that suggests that this massive press has already been installed at giga Texas right under everyone's nose. No, there is no direct proof that I can find, but I think following the trail of the worlds biggest HPDC machine tells a different story.

First of all, I'm making the assumption that drone pilots will have seen the press, even if they didn't know if it was the 6k ton or the 8k ton, as it does require a crane to assemble and a lot of effort.

Facts:
1. Tesla officially ordered the giga press sometime in March of 2021.
2. The 8k press is completed and is fully functional prior to tesla's purchase. This is an important point I didn't realize until tonight!

3. The press shipping requires 24 days to get to Houston Texas and at least 2 weeks to disassemble and package.


Based on the information, technical requirements, and cost of shipping something so large and specialized, the shipping timelines are generally going to be very tight and monitored.
These facts give us a ballpark of 38-45 days for shipment after purchase, unless Tesla requested it not be shipped. But, I mean, I can't see Elon being ok with going slower, lol.
Since we don't know the exact order date, except for "March 2021," we'll just assume a range. That puts delivery between mid April to mid June.
Now there isn't any drone footage of extra large deliveries in that timeline, or until today for that matter! However, a very large giga press delivery can be seen in early April:

in the same video (same day), you can see an existing and already installed giga press (likely a 6k ton).

I think it is more likely that the CT press was shipped early and the purchase went through in March than not seeing delivery over a month past the latest prediction.

The final nail in the coffin for me is the most recent footage of the press wing at night:
The night shot provides a very clear view of a press that it clearly not the same press we're all used to seeing pumping out the model Y casting. If you look closely, these are different machines. Of course they could be just 2 different looking 6k ton presses, but I find it unlikely that IDRA would build the same machine twice with that many changes to it.

I think this happened under everyone's nose and that Jeff Roberts was right all along, the 8k ton press was installed back in the beginning of April.

Cheers!
One small disagreement. The IDRA press release in March doesn't mean that Tesla ordered in March. I would assume that Tesla was in talks to produce the 8000 ton press as soon as it was determined it was needed probably sometime in 2018 or 2019. Then IDRA would have designed and tested the machine and then Tesla finalized purchase which probably included a media blackout. So yes by the time IDRA did the announcement that press was already at Giga Texas.
 
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tmeyer3

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One small disagreement. The IDRA press release in March doesn't mean that Tesla ordered in March. I would assume that Tesla was in talks to produce the 8000 ton press as soon as it was determined it was needed probably sometime in 2018 or 2019. Then IDRA would have designed and tested the machine and then Tesla finalized purchase which probably included a media blackout. So yes by the time IDRA did the announcement that press was already at Giga Texas.
Quite possibly. It's not a small buy lol. Though, the IDRA founder did say the press was purchased in March. That doesn't mean Tesla wasn't involved every step of the way.
 


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tmeyer3

tmeyer3

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Or already on its way. I saw recently something about Elon saying how many trucks it took to transport it.



-Crissa
It's really tough to know which press is which, though. We know Tesla owns quite a few of them now. But there's only one confirmed 8k ton, for now. I'm sure IDRA is not lacking business ?
 

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Quite possibly. It's not a small buy lol. Though, the IDRA founder did say the press was purchased in March. That doesn't mean Tesla wasn't involved every step of the way.
To be fair to IDRA... English is not their first language.
“Once again, IDRA makes a world’s first for technological innovation, and we are very proud to announce that today, on the 16th of March 2021, we’ve been able to secure the first order for an 8,000-ton die-casting machine. This order is being placed by a leading global manufacturer for new energy vehicles.”
He actually says that he can announce today March 16. The tense on "this order is being placed" might be unintentionally misleading...
In other words.... how do we know that the press we saw at giga Texas isn't an 8000 ton press? Yes it was spitting out model Y casts but I imagine that a giga press can do more than just make 1 part.
 
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JBee

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To be fair to IDRA... English is not their first language.
“Once again, IDRA makes a world’s first for technological innovation, and we are very proud to announce that today, on the 16th of March 2021, we’ve been able to secure the first order for an 8,000-ton die-casting machine. This order is being placed by a leading global manufacturer for new energy vehicles.”
He actually says that he can announce today March 16. The tense on "this order is being placed" might be unintentionally misleading...
In other words.... how do we know that the press we saw at giga Texas isn't an 8000 ton press? Yes it was spitting out model Y casts but I imagine that a giga press can do more than just make 1 part.
Well it has to make at least two. One front and one rear casting. So long its big enough for the CT, I'm sure it can do MY castings by changing the tooling. So you could have one GP doing more than one model of car, they'd just have to run it in batches for each. It already will have to do batches for the front and rear castings.



If we do a cast a minute we get 131,000 casts a quarter. That would be 32,700 MYs and CTs a quarter from one GP.
 
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John K

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At the checkout shipping page

extremely slow 10% of machine cost ?
slightly faster 15% of machine cost ? (includes public official bribes)

Overnight delivery “Sign the blood contract”. ?
 

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I would love to have the 8k ton press already on-site but I am very skeptical.

1. the Giga Press we see in April 5th drone videos was confirmed to be a Stotek Aluminum furnace that is used to melt the aluminum ingots before casting as seen in Jeff Tegtmeyers April 7th video (2:59 mark of this video)

2. We have heard from multiple sources serval times that the casting area where the 2 Giga Press that is currently installed and running test production is the dedicated Model Y area. That fits what Elon has stated where he said that Model Y will be the first to roll out of the factory. The angeled section that is currently being built is the Cybertruck casting area. Again Joe Tegtmeyer explained in great detail back on April 25th the floor plan of the casting area. I highly encourage you all to watch. (Watch from the beginning) .

3. I do not think the 8k GP has been delivered. The foundation has not been dug out yet. I suspect we are at least 1 month away before the foundations will be ready for installation.

4. Yes, the GPs can be re-tooled. I've heard it will take between 1 and 2 hours to do so. I can't imagine Tesla willing to spent that much downtime constantly re-tooling every time they want to switch between front and rear castings. In the video above Joe shows the layout for 6 6k GPs and 6 8k presses. It will be probably 2023 before all are installed and running but I suspect that each GP will have its own specific part that gets spit out in the beginning. So 1 Model Y front casting and 1 rear casting. The same goes with the CT. Since there are currently 2 6k GPs on site then we should expect 2 8k GPs arriving in the next month or two.
 


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Sorry but as much as I would love to believe this fairy tale it cannot be true. Yes, there are 2 Gigapresses that have been received and the first was clearly labeled a 6K ton press. I haven’t seen the other label but it does look the same (maybe shifted or reversed). You would need 2 gigapresses for the MY, minimum, and more likely 4, 6, or 8 (in pairs). Tesla would probably put the MY machines together to make it easier on the engineering staff. When the second machine was delivered it was still way too close to the announcement date. These things are impossible to hide and generally sit around until all or most of the parts have shown up so we see the parts arrive and hear about them arriving through the quad squad very quickly.

The concrete pads for the 8K ton machines have not been marked or set, yet, and that would precede mounting the cranes which, because the structure is now covered, will be required to install the casting machines.

So, no, an 8K ton casting machine has not been delivered or assembled. I think that another furnace has been delivered and is sitting in one of the yards and in one of the videos I saw a piece of a crane (maybe a gantry), but no gigapress.
 

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I know there has been talk about the 8000 ton high pressure die casting machine (giga press) required for CT production and whether or not it has been delivered. Based purely on the footage from the dedicated drone pilots watching giga Texas construction, there's really no conclusive way to tell if the press has or hasn't been installed. This post is simply my logic, sources, and general reasoning that suggests that this massive press has already been installed at giga Texas right under everyone's nose. No, there is no direct proof that I can find, but I think following the trail of the worlds biggest HPDC machine tells a different story.

First of all, I'm making the assumption that drone pilots will have seen the press, even if they didn't know if it was the 6k ton or the 8k ton, as it does require a crane to assemble and a lot of effort.

Facts:
1. Tesla officially ordered the giga press sometime in March of 2021.
2. The 8k press is completed and is fully functional prior to tesla's purchase. This is an important point I didn't realize until tonight!

3. The press shipping requires 24 days to get to Houston Texas and at least 2 weeks to disassemble and package.


Based on the information, technical requirements, and cost of shipping something so large and specialized, the shipping timelines are generally going to be very tight and monitored.
These facts give us a ballpark of 38-45 days for shipment after purchase, unless Tesla requested it not be shipped. But, I mean, I can't see Elon being ok with going slower, lol.
Since we don't know the exact order date, except for "March 2021," we'll just assume a range. That puts delivery between mid April to mid June.
Now there isn't any drone footage of extra large deliveries in that timeline, or until today for that matter! However, a very large giga press delivery can be seen in early April:

in the same video (same day), you can see an existing and already installed giga press (likely a 6k ton).

I think it is more likely that the CT press was shipped early and the purchase went through in March than not seeing delivery over a month past the latest prediction.

The final nail in the coffin for me is the most recent footage of the press wing at night:
The night shot provides a very clear view of a press that it clearly not the same press we're all used to seeing pumping out the model Y casting. If you look closely, these are different machines. Of course they could be just 2 different looking 6k ton presses, but I find it unlikely that IDRA would build the same machine twice with that many changes to it.

I think this happened under everyone's nose and that Jeff Roberts was right all along, the 8k ton press was installed back in the beginning of April.

Cheers!
I expected, once the presses area was first enclosed, that the IDRA machinery was inbound for Cybertruck.

As Dir. of Safety of third largest irregular route carrier in U.S. years ago those presses would be labeled 6000 lb. All heavy-haul movements for example CATERPILLAR D-8 dozer and above were decalled as D-6. Nobody could tell the difference unless side-by-side. Everyone believes what they read on a factory ID. That is custom and normal practice to avoid reciprocity repercussions crossing state lines.
 

Jhodgesatmb

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I expected, once the presses area was first enclosed, that the IDRA machinery was inbound for Cybertruck.

As Dir. of Safety of third largest irregular route carrier in U.S. years ago those presses would be labeled 6000 lb. All heavy-haul movements for example CATERPILLAR D-8 dozer and above were decalled as D-6. Nobody could tell the difference unless side-by-side. Everyone believes what they read on a factory ID. That is custom and normal practice to avoid reciprocity repercussions crossing state lines.
I do not know what @rr6013 was basing their evaluation on but I was basing mine on the installed labeling, such as

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url...ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCNjL3sj6-_ECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

This kind of labeling was clearly seen on the first press that was delivered, installed, and tested at GigaAustin. The second one obscurred the labeling on the first and its own labeling is probably obscurred, possibly if the machine orientation is reversed.
 

rr6013

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I do not know what @rr6013 was basing their evaluation on but I was basing mine on the installed labeling, such as

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https://www.teslaoracle.com/2021/03/20/tesla-orders-its-first-8000-ton-cybertruck-giga-casting-machine/&psig=AOvVaw0X3jzrYODCbuDlWFAQw0c2&ust=1627224700118000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCNjL3sj6-_ECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

This kind of labeling was clearly seen on the first press that was delivered, installed, and tested at GigaAustin. The second one obscurred the labeling on the first and its own labeling is probably obscurred, possibly if the machine orientation is reversed.
As a General Contractor involved in secret(as in trade) development, I was involved in competitive laboratory development to synthesize diamond. HUGE presses were installed. Not everything you see or read is necessarily 100% accurate nor it be even true.

Just my prior experience on the bleeding edge.
 
 




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