In 2018, Tesla was in a very different place. The company was struggling to launch the Model 3 and was behind Elon Musk’s aggressive self-imposed vehicle production goals. The Fremont Factory assembly lines were not producing enough Models 3 and it looked like the company was about to go bankrupt. Critics and shorts circled Tesla like sharks sniffing blood in the water. But something unexpected happened and things were never the same.
Throwing conventions out the window, Tesla built another Model 3 line within a huge structure suspended on the Fremont Factory grounds, which CEO Elon Musk affectionately called an online “tent”. The structure, dubbed GA4, was ridiculed to the highest degree, used as a joke by critics and immediately dismissed by skeptics. However, what was almost unknown at the time was that Tesla could really have stumbled upon something special with its flexible structure-based line. By building a simple, straightforward Model 3 line inside a “tent,” Tesla appears to have effectively created a solid Gigafactory formula.
No standard automotive solution could be built in time, so we created a new solution. It is working and has slightly higher quality than the more traditional general assembly line. Perhaps most surprisingly, the total production cost of the Sprung tent is lower.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 27, 2018
A practical concept
The Model 3 line based on flexible structure was the brainchild of automotive president Jerome Guillen, widely known as Elon Musk’s “problem solver” in the early days of Model S. The “tent” based line followed a relatively simple system, with vehicles being progressively assembled as they advanced into the tent. Even the GA4 loading bays were placed on the sides of the structure, allowing Tesla to receive deliveries on the line efficiently. Musk was enthusiastic about the suspended structure on Twitter, noting long after the construction of the “tent” that the vehicles produced on the site were “slightly higher quality” than cars manufactured elsewhere.
This humble but creative start seems to have become the heart of Tesla’s Gigafactory formula, used in Giga Shanghai and Giga Berlin, and apparently further enhanced with Gigafactory Texas. This can be seen in the design and processes that Tesla has adopted so far at its Shanghai and Berlin factories, both of which invoke the image of an enlarged, refined and optimized version of Fremont’s “tent”.
Gigafactory formula
Tesla critics often neglect the fact that Fremont Factory is a legacy car factory at its core. It is an extensive and impressive facility in its own right, but it is not a place specifically developed to produce fully electric cars. So, for the Model S, the Model X and the early days of the Model 3, Tesla was essentially developing a system that creates EVs at scale using a facility initially designed to manufacture cars equipped with an internal combustion engine.
Obviously, Tesla made several adjustments to transform the Fremont Factory into one of the most advanced electric vehicle factories on the market. However, it is hard not to be impressed by Tesla’s rapid production ramp and flexibility at Gigafactory Shanghai, arguably the first EV plant the company built using its GA4 formula, with its simple production lines for its numerous cargo compartments throughout. your side. This concept seems to have been carried over to Gigafactory Berlin, which is expected to increase its operations at a rate that rivals even that of Giga Shanghai.
A question of scale
Ultimately, it looks like GA4 was a kind of Tesla “eureka” moment, at least for its electric vehicle factories. By expanding and refining the concept based on suspended structure, Tesla was able to create monstrous factories like Giga Shanghai and, later this year, Gigafactory Berlin as well. However, that is not all, as Tesla appears to be adopting an updated design for Gigafactory Texas, with its three main buildings built in parallel to each other. Little is known about the reasons behind the Giga Texas design, but there is little doubt that the expansive installation will be very impressive when completed.
Before the “production hell” of Model 3, Elon Musk talked about Tesla’s “Alien Dreadnought” factories, which were supposed to be so automated and advanced that they would look like alien installations featured in science fiction. Tesla seems to have shelved that idea following the challenges of the Model 3 on its initial production ramp. With a sort of Gigafactory formula established in their repertoire, however, and associated with innovations like Model Y megacasts, Elon Musk’s battleships may not be far off in the future.
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