Tesla works on a rare-earths-free EV motor, will build a Gigafactory in Mexico

3 March 2023, 04:19:36

Tesla's 2023 Investor Day offered several interesting pieces of information. For starters, during the time for vehicle design, Tesla presented in detail how it optimized the manufacturing process starting from design to the assembly resulting in decreasing the "nothing-to-do" time and more than 40% reduction in manufacturing footprint. Thus the company will build factories faster, with less CapEx and more output per unit. This process will be used in the next-gen Tesla vehicle leading to 50% reduction in cost.

The second part was about Tesla's powertrain. From 2017 to 2022, Model 3's powertrain has become 20% lighter, has used 25% less rare earth materials. The latest powertrain factory is 75% smaller and 65% cheaper without compromise. This is achieved by designing in-house everything about the vehicle and the factory that manufactures it. It was also mentioned that Tesla aims to create an electric motor without any rare earth materials whatsoever. It will power the next-gen vehicle mentioned in the first part of the presentation. Details on how this will be achieved and what materials will be used have not been provided.

Tesla continued by presenting its achievements and optimizations in every single aspect that lead to cost reduction and increase in efficiency, including in the terms of electronic architecture, software, the full self-driving solution, charging, and supply chain. In the context of the supply chain, it was interesting to observe how optimizations have led to increasing output and decreasing labor hours. It is not only about optimizing vehicle production but also the production of battery cells. Tesla has made a huge leap from the production of typical 2170 cylindrical cells to the upcoming Gigafactory in Nevada for 4680 cells with a reduced number of parts in the cell and processes resulting in a 10x smaller factory volumetrically, meaning it is faster to build and has a lower CapEx per GWh output. This is again due to a highly integrated design and production team.

Again, the next-gen vehicle was referred to in the finances part of the presentation covering all aspects including the lowered cost of ownership. The last interesting news from the 2023 Investor Day is the Elon Musk officially confirmed that Tesla will build a Gigafactory in Mexico, where it will manufacture its next-gen vehicle.

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