Traditional car companies are not idle.

I have to admit that Tesla is a star car company with its own traffic, and every move will be interpreted as "subverting tradition" and "challenging the future". The people managed by Musk have made great contributions. Of course, Tesla's genetic talent in software is really outstanding.

So this time, when Tesla Giga Shanghai announced that the large-scale die-casting machine was put into mass production, it was interpreted by many people as "another dragon slaughter by Tesla".

This may be due to Musk's own evaluation tone of the overall die casting completed in the fremont factory: "This is the world's largest die casting machine, which can integrally form the rear part of the car body ..."

Therefore, in the hearts of people who eat melons, it is a very powerful technology to divide the car into two parts, the front part and the back part, and the tail part is integrally formed. In addition, there are also many media propaganda drafts to promote the one-sided advantages of integrated die casting, such as "building a car like a toy".

In fact, the whole die-casting thing is not so subversive and not so beautiful.

In fact, the integrally formed parts can be regarded as a part of the rear floor assembly. The specific location is under the back seat, that is, under the rear passenger's ass.

What is its function? According to the literal meaning, the floor used for accommodation and placement is not the main part involved in structural safety. When a building collapses, everyone will say that the foundation beam is not strong. No one will say that the floor is not strong enough, right?

Therefore, the only purpose of Tesla's integrated die casting on this part is to reduce the cost from three aspects.

As a contrast, let's look at how traditional car companies (or car companies other than Tesla) do it from another angle.

It is formed by cold stamping different strength plates into pipes, boxes and other parts, and then welding them. So the total number of parts in this piece will be dozens or hundreds.

For this, Tesla made it very clear that its integrated die casting technology can reduce the original 70 parts to two.

Hearing this, if you have dealt with the production line, you can understand the economic value, as Tesla announced:

It only takes 90 seconds to pour two parts, two sets of molds. However, the stamping and welding of 70 parts of ordinary automobile enterprises takes more than 2 hours, which has great cost value for the equipment, site, labor, production rhythm, inspection and logistics required for upstream and downstream production.

However, if all the benefits are taken up by integrated die casting, traditional car companies are looking forward to more than 20% of the cost space, and they have to design and sell iron.

First of all, I think Tesla's 90s is reasonable, but the punching+stamping+welding of 70 parts of "traditional car companies" will definitely take less than 2 hours. For punching and stamping, for simple surfaces, the sum is about 1 second. Welding depends on the weld length. The rear floor assembly is mainly spot welded, and there are not many long welds. Of course, if we calculate from the upper conveyor belt to the lower conveyor belt of each part, it may really take 2 hours to enter the next process.

The above is not to refute Tesla's advantages. It is an indisputable fact that the time required for die-casting welding of two parts is definitely less than that for processing and welding of 70 parts, but it is not so exaggerated, at least not so exaggerated that the smart people in the OEM choose to update the equipment and technology.

In addition, although die casting is integrated, it sounds stronger. In fact, process control is more difficult, and it is far less mature than cold stamping.

Just kidding, the above picture shows gravity casting, while die casting is more of a main injection pressurization process. However, the above figure can illustrate some problems. The details of the casting itself are much worse than those assembled by parts-unless it is used in scenes where modeling is not complicated and only strength is considered, such as engine block and steering knuckle.

Because aluminum is formed by spray pressing after melting, we have to consider the factors that cause deformation such as thermal expansion and cold contraction. And the unreasonable temperature change process may also affect the strength consistency of parts.

These are the reasons why traditional car companies don't need die casting. So the mature upstream-steel mills, so mature technology-stamping+welding, can still firmly grasp the quality and consistency in the hands of quality engineers. To make changes, the whole industry must have a new process of matching and exploration, which will not work.

Therefore, Tesla's integrated die-casting of the back floor has not yet reached the point where traditional car companies are dumbfounded. Many of them evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of this process and finally chose to give it up (or use it on small-sized or special parts instead of such a large and complicated assembly).

However, die casting itself has an advantage that cannot be ignored, and it is also the only driving force for Tesla to do this-cost. If it can be tied, 1 points squeezed out of the teeth are all younger brothers. If die casting is applied to larger and more complex components, the greater the cost-effectiveness, starting with at least two digits.

Moreover, the incidental income will be infinitely amplified in the production rhythm of electric vehicles. In the end, Tesla's goal must be to press a car front, press a parking space and weld the battery to the floor.

Think about it, the press changes a set of molds and presses out a car three times.

Of course, with the current scientific and technological level of the earth, Tesla only applied an integrated die-casting part in the private part of Model Y, which is an attempt and experience accumulation. For traditional car companies, there is no incentive to make too many changes unless their core interests are challenged. For example, everyone is a B-class car, and the cost of Tesla is half of yours.

For the purpose of only discussing technology, Tesla's new technology may not have much advantage at present, but it is likely to affect the direction of the industry. This is the power of a powerful catfish.