Tesla To Make Its 1st Texas-Built Test Model Y Next Week, 1 Month Ahead Of Giga Berlin

Republished By Plato

Followers: 0

Joe Tegtmeyer, a member of the Giga Texas drone pilot group Quad Squad, shared some interesting news in his latest daily update on Giga Texas’ progress. Tegtmeyer said that he just spoke to a trusted source who works on the site and who has knowledge of the construction and timelines of Giga Texas, and he learned some interesting news. The largest piece of news is that Tesla will produce its first full test Model Y at Giga Texas next week. That means it will be fully operational but not street legal. But wait, there’s more!

[embedded content]

He was also told that as far as production of the Model Y is concerned, Giga Texas is farther along than Giga Berlin by about a month at present time!

“The biggest thing I’d like to talk about today is some breaking news from a trusted onsite source. The source is familiar with the Giga Texas construction as well as some of the other gigafactories, and during that conversation confirmed that Giga Texas in terms of the production of the Model Y is ahead of Giga Berlin probably by about a month or so.

“Expect the first fully produced test Model Y, which will be running operational but not street legal, in the next week here at Giga Texas. And that would include the stampings, the castings, the welding, the painting, the batteries — everything — a full test running prototype. It’s also used for training of the new employees.

“And I also found out that Tesla is convinced that within the next two months, they will have production Model Ys coming out of Giga Texas.”

Race Of The Gigafactories

Image courtesy of Tesla

This is so fun to look back on. Last year, I interviewed another Quad Squad member, Jeff Roberts, when Giga Texas construction had just started operating 24/7 with three shifts. In that interview, Jeff told me that Tegtmeyer analyzed and compared the speeds of Giga Texas with both Giga Shanghai and Giga Berlin. Tegtmeyer found that:

“Texas was keeping up or exceeding the rate of building of those two locations and, as you know, Tesla’s continually learning that Gigafactory is a product in itself, and they’re learning how to make the product better and faster with every iteration of that product.”

Looking at that article from almost a year ago, we can see that Giga Texas is definitely winning the race, since Giga Berlin is about a month behind Giga Texas in terms of the production of the Model Y. Considering Giga Berlin’s construction had a bit of a head start on Giga Texas, those of us who like fun and healthy competition are grabbing the popcorn and keeping score.

Amazing Progress & New Design Of The Tesla Model Y

Recently, Tesla held its Q2 2021 earnings call at Giga Texas and CEO Elon Musk touched upon the amazing progress that Giga Texas has made. Elon also mentioned that Tesla would have a new design of the Model Y at both Giga Texas and Giga Berlin.

“You can see the pictures online and see that there’s basically nothing a year ago and this — a large — a mostly complete large factory a year later. So it’s really great work by the Giga Texas team and then also great work in Berlin-Brandenburg with the team there. So we expect to be producing the sort of new design of the Model Y in both factories in limited production later this year. It’s always like it’s not — it’s hard to sort of explain to people who have not been through the agony of a manufacturing ramp, like why can’t you just turn it on and make like 5,000 a week.”

He explained that the made-in-Texas and made-in-Berlin Model Ys would look like the Model Ys Tesla currently makes. However, there are significant manufacturing improvements.

“So, let’s see, the Model Y in Texas — made in Texas and Berlin — will be — will look very much like the Model Ys we currently make, but there are substantial improvements in the difficulty of manufacturing. So, for example, the Model Y made here and in Berlin will have a cast front body and a cast rear body, whereas the one in California has cast rear body but not a cast front body.”

For those who want a tidbit of Cybertruck information, we can look to the earnings call for clues about that. Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, said during the earnings call that the Cybertruck will be moving into the beta phases later this year and that Tesla will be looking to ramp it up after the Model Y is up and going, which, if Joe’s source is correct, will be in about two months, at least. Throw some good ol’ Elon time in the mix and add in an extra month just in case.