Last week the first video of the IDRA Giga Press machine in action at Tesla Fremont emerged. A drone flying over the factory caught the massive machine creating a single-piece rear underbody for the Model Y in a matter of minutes.
It looks like Fremont isn’t the only factory with one of the machines in operation, as the Model Y’s being built at Giga Shanghai now also feature the single-piece underbody.
In two separate tear downs of the made-in-China Model Y, we see the rear underbody of the electric SUV is also made of the same cast piece of metal. When comparing it to what is being made at Fremont, it appears the automaker is using a different process in China to either not paint the pieces of cast alloy, or using a different coating altogether.
Use the slider below to compare the two pieces – the red one is made in Fremont.
In a video uploaded to the Chinese video sharing website Bilibili, we also get a glimpse of the underbody from the front of the vehicle, giving us a different perspective on the casting.
The made-in-China Model Y has one feature that hasn’t made it to North America yet – Bioweapon Defense Mode. In the same teardown from above, we learned the feature actually uses dual-layer filters. It was also put to the test, showing impressive results in filtering out airborne pollutants.
h/t: Kelvin Yang
