Environment

Tesla is spotted assembling giant casting machine for Cybertruck production

Published

2 years ago

January 16, 2023

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Tesla has been spotted assembling its giant new casting machine for Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas.

Last year, Idra, the maker of Tesla’s large casting press, teased a new 9,000-ton Giga Press that would take the prize as largest in the world. Considering Tesla’s relationship with Idra, it was rumored that the new machine would be for the automaker.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has since confirmed that the machine is going to be used for the Cybertruck body at Gigafactory Texas.

Tesla’s investment in larger cast parts has been extremely successful so far. The automaker managed to produce the Model Y with a single rear body piece that replaced 70 different parts in the vehicle, and it is doing the same with the front underbody.

This greatly simplifies the manufacturing process and reduces costs.

Following the success of the integration of large casting technology, several other automakers are apparently looking to follow in Tesla’s footsteps.

Idra reported last year that half a dozen other automakers are currently in talks to adopt the technology, but it could take years before they can integrate it into any vehicle programs.

But as for Tesla, the automaker is already moving into a wider integration of the technology, including with the Cybertruck, which is going to have even larger single casting parts.

Over the last few months, Tesla has been spotted getting deliveries of parts of the massive press from Idra.

Now a new drone flyover of Gigafactory Texas that managed to peek inside the factory showed that Tesla is currently assembling the new 9-ton Giga Press:

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The giant machine has been spotted partly assembled in a section of the factory where Tesla plans to build the Cybertruck’s body:

There are a lot of eyes on the Cybertruck production program.

There are about 1.5 million people interested in the Tesla Cybertruck, and they have been starved of information for a while.

An update on the production version with final specs and pricing has been expected for the past year, but the automaker has decided to stay quiet about the electric truck, which already had some delays.

When Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck back in 2019, Tesla said that the electric pickup truck would make it to market by the end of 2021. As the deadline was approaching, the automaker confirmed that production slipped to 2022.

CEO Elon Musk later said that Tesla was targeting a start of production for the electric pickup truck in “late 2022” at Gigafactory Texas. With the focus clearly on bringing the Model Y to production at the factory (that being delayed as well), it appeared likely that the Cybertruck production timeline could also slip.

In March 2022, it was confirmed that Tesla aims to complete Cybertruck development this year for production in 2023, and in June, Musk said that Tesla is aiming for production to start in mid-2023.

In its communications, Tesla has stuck to a mid-2023 timeline over the last few months. Therefore, it’s important to see Tesla making progress on some of those critical new production tools like this Giga Press in order for the automaker to stick to its timeline.

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Environment

Oil giant Saudi Aramco posts 15% drop in third-quarter profit but maintains dividend

Published

3 hours ago

November 5, 2024

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Oil giant Saudi Aramco posts 15% drop in third-quarter profit but maintains dividend

Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal

Ahmed Jadallah | Reuters

Saudi state oil giant Aramco reported a 15.4% drop in net profit in the third-quarter on the back of “lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” but maintained a 31.05 billion dividend.

The company reported net income of $27.56 billion in the July-September period, topping a company-provided estimate of $26.9 billion. The print is also a 5% drop from the previous quarter, which came in at $29.1 billion, as lower global oil prices, weaker demand and prolonged OPEC+ production cuts led by Saudi Arabia continue to impact crude prices.

The average selling price of oil for the second quarter of 2024 stood at $85 per barrel, but dropped to $78.7 per barrel during the third quarter, according to Saudi-based bank Al Rajhi capital, as non-OPEC supply volumes grew.

The oil firm said its year-on-year decline was partly offset by a “reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses primarily driven by a gain from derivative instruments, and a decrease in production royalties largely reflecting lower crude oil prices and a lower average effective royalty rate compared to the same quarter last year.”

Aramco’s dividend includes a base payout of $20.3 billion and an atypical performance-linked one of $10.8 billion. The Saudi government and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, are the main beneficiaries of the dividend, holding stakes of roughly 81.5% and 16% in the company.

The remaining shareholding trades freely on Saudi Arabia’s Tadāwul stock exchange, with the company having finalized its second public share offering back in June.

Aramco’s earnings before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) came in at $51.45 billion in the third quarter, down 17% year-on-year. Aramco’s capital expenditure guidance was brought up 20% to $13.23 billion.

The company was trading at 27.45 riyals following the announcement, down 0.18% on the previous day.

The earnings align with a broader trend across oil majors, whose third-quarter profits have also suffered from declines in crude prices and refining margins. Aramco said it achieved average realized crude price of $79.3 per barrel in the third quarter, compared with $89.3 per barrel in the same period of last year.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter who produces roughly 9 million barrels per day of crude at present, serves as the de facto leader of the OPEC+ oil producers’ alliance, a subset of whom agreed over the weekend to delay a planned December output hike by one month.

OPEC chief says delayed December output hike is 'nothing unusual'

“Aramco delivered robust net income and generated strong free cash flow during the third quarter, despite a lower oil price environment,” CEO Amin Nasser said in a statement. “We also progressed our upstream developments, strengthened our downstream value chain, and advanced our new energies program as we continue to invest through cycles.”

The revenues will be a boon to the Saudi economy, which is currently undergoing a diversification process under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s legacy Vision 2030 scheme spanning a slew of high-cost infrastructure “gigaprojects.”

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance cut the kingdom’s growth forecast to 0.8% in 2024, in a steep decline from a previous projection of 4.4%, and raised the outlook for the national budgetary shortfall to roughly 2.9% of GDP, from a prior indication of 1.9%.

Environment

Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

Published

9 hours ago

November 5, 2024

admin

Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla’s Cybertruck is now available in Canada – and, like in the US, there’s no waiting! Plus, we’ve got an “actually” smart summon Tesla that’s actually stuck, GM reaches a sales milestone, and we get a brand-new title sponsor!

Today’s episode is the first with our new title sponsor, BLUETTI – a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems.

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New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonusLucid proves than an EV company can keep its promises while Xiaomi teams up with Chevrolet and Honda to prove – at least conceptually – that records are made to be broken. audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news!

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Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

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Environment

This ‘supercharger on wheels’ brings fast charging to you [update]

Published

10 hours ago

November 4, 2024

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This 'supercharger on wheels' brings fast charging to you [update]

Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”

November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).

It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.

Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”

May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.

“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.

The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)

Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)

Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.

The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.

To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.

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