Tesla’s Giga Press supplier IDRA Group has shared a teaser of their first ever 9,000 ton die casting machine.
IDRA shared a photo of the 9,000 ton Giga Press to their LinkedIn page, showing off the machine’s impressive scale with an employee standing in front of it. If the employee is about 6 feet tall, we estimate the machine is close to 25 feet tall.
The massive machine is currently being assembled at their facility in Travagliato, Italy, after which it will be put on display and previewed during on open house from June 6 to June 14, 2022.
IDRA hasn’t announced which customer ordered the 9,000 ton Giga Press, but the natural conclusion is that it could be for Tesla. Just over one year ago the company announced they had secured an order for their 8,000 ton Giga Press from a “leading global manufacturer for new energy vehicles.”
That machine was expected to produce the castings for the upcoming Cybertruck, so either Tesla has updated their specs and require a larger machine than originally thought, or the automaker could be planning something different with the 9,000 ton machine, perhaps using it to build the Semi or even an entirely new application where it makes an entire vehicle in a single casting, as hinted at by Elon Musk earlier this year.
With our giant casting machines, we are literally trying to make full-size cars in the same way that toy cars are made
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 18, 2021
We will hopefully learn more next month as the company will preview the machine in Italy. If it is indeed for Tesla, it would take several months for them to disassemble the machine, ship it to one of their factories, and reassemble it before it can begin operation.
You can watch this short video previewing the machine below.
UPDATE May 31 11:23am PST: IDRA Group has now published a video showing the 9,000 ton Giga Press being assembled. They still have not confirmed this is for Tesla and the Cybertruck.
