Tesla has recently stepped up tooling at Giga Texas to produce its 4680 battery cells. It took delivery and installed large, heavy-duty presses supplied by Sacmi in the facility’s cathode building last week.
According to documentation uncovered last October by @greggertruck, the American EV maker received a shipment from Italy. The packages originated from Sacmi, a heavy-duty industrial equipment maker. It was classified as weighing 334,000 lbs, leading @greggertruck to believe it was for Cybertruck production. Aerial images captured by drone pilot Joe Tegtmeyer, however, revealed the equipment from Italy was delivered last week to the cathode building of Giga Texas, which is still under construction.
https://twitter.com/greggertruck/status/1619043717964521474
One of the construction workers that helped bring the machines into the cathode building and install them shared photos with Drive Tesla, showing just how massive they are. According to the worker each piece weighs 300 metric tons, which was 3 times bigger than what Tesla needed but they purchased it as it was the only one available and waiting for something that better suited their size requirements would have taken too long.
Since the Sacmi machinery was delivered to Tesla’s cathode building, it is safe to assume these machines will be used in the production of 4680 battery cells. The Italian company’s website has pages dedicated to lithium-ion battery powder treatment systems for cathode and anode materials.
This is apparently just the beginning of equipment being installed in the cathode building. A Tesla engineer said the building will have so much battery production equipment that “you won’t be able to walk” freely inside, so we should expect to see more deliveries to the cathode building in the coming weeks.
You can learn more about these Sacmi machines and how they work from drone pilot Joe Tegtmeyer in the video below.
