Tesla has officially secured an order for the world’s first 8,000-ton casting machine which is slated to play a key role in Cybertruck production.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced earlier this year during the automaker’s Q4 and 2020 financial earnings call that it was looking to secure an order for a casting machine that would break the previous record for the world largest casting machine: “We’ll soon order the equipment necessary to make the Cybertruck work. We’re actually going to be using even bigger machines for the rear body of Cybertruck because you’ve got – obviously, it’s a bigger vehicle and you’ve got a long truck bed that’s going to do a lot of loads. So we’ll be using an 8,000-ton casting press for the rear body casting, as opposed to 6,000 tons for Model Y. So 6,000 tons was the biggest casting machine in the world.”
This week Italy-based die casting technology company, Idra, announced they have officially secured an order for an 8,000-ton casting machine.
Idra General Manager, Riccardo Ferrario said about the order “Idra makes a world’s first for technological innovation and we are very proud to that today, on March 16, 2021, we have been able to secure the first order for an 8,000-ton die casting machine.”
There was no confirmation that the order was placed by Tesla but instead a “leading global manufacturer for new energy vehicles.” Considering Idra is already a supplier for the EV giant along with Musks mention of the new machine in January, the odds of the mystery buyer being Tesla are very big.
Check out Idra’s announcement in the video below:
The new machine is expected to be housed at Tesla Gigafactory Texas, which will also house the initial production of Tesla’s Cybertruck late this year or early next year.