The electric car changed everything. With the growing popularity, the industry is already working on the move in the coming years. No one can refuse or ignore the influence Tesla is throughout this process. The Americans surprised us with their way of selling and also of manufacturing. No one could match his pace and many of his opponents looked skeptical at trying to emulate his techniques. Hyundai wants to be one of the leaders in electric mobility and knows that it needs to step on the accelerator in its factories. To do this, they hope to copy a system that Tesla has applied for years with great success.
The Gigafactory concept is not something exclusive to Elon Musk’s company. Although the American magnate invented a term that we often use today, there were many factories around the world before Tesla adopted it. The most obvious example is Wolfsburg, the home of Volkswagen in Germany. It is not only a plant where 60,000 employees work every day, but an entire city has grown around it. There is nothing greater than that. However, Tesla should be given credit for perfecting a process that has remained virtually unchanged for over a century.
Henry Ford’s great contribution to the world of automobiles was not his cars, but the assembly line. The American businessman realized that if he wanted to sell more and cheaper he had to do it faster. This recipe was used in the past and continues to be used today. The faster and higher volume a car is produced, the cheaper it is to manufacture and the cheaper it is to sell. Prices are important when putting a car on the market. Tesla is successful not only because of the characteristics of its electric cars, but also because of their attractive price.
Americans have been using GigaPress for years. Large foundry furnaces capable of casting large pieces in seconds. The traditional system is based on large, state-of-the-art robots that weld and connect different pieces like a construction toy. Tesla uses a different system that speeds up the process and makes it cheaper. Several brands are already planning the change, including Volkswagen and China’s Geely Group. The latter already make their Zeekr models this way.
Now, it is Hyundai that wants to replace the old system with large press foundries. The purpose is to adapt the assembly lines of some of its factories so that they go from producing ICE models to exclusively electric models. The first of the factories to adopt Tesla’s system is in South Korea. The plans say that it can start operating in 2026, however, so far, nothing has been confirmed. Hyundai may be said to be successful in its electrification revolution, but the Koreans know they can’t sleep because they will be outnumbered by more rivals.
