| > I find hard to believe that no one has thought about this before Automotive companies utilize a myriad of frame designs for their vehicles - each one a collection of different alloys, structural shapes and castings depending on the design goals for not only the vehicle of today, but changes that they foresee in future vehicles that would utilize the same basic BIW lines (to conserve capital expenditures, training procedures and inspection methodologies). There are some automotive companies that rely on some cast product of various sizes in their frame designs. That is not really new. Tesla is obviously taking some more extreme measures than other automakers, but electric vehicles do inherently put more frame design freedom on the table given that there is not an engine compartment per se to consider in terms of passenger safety. That said, generally, the disadvantages of large castings in automotive applications are: 1. Poor reparability, and 2. Porosity risks (which can unexpectedly yield structural issues), and 3. Wide tolerances, and 4. Need for a post-cast finished machining process (application dependent), and 5. Long cycle times, and 6. Design space difficulty in managing the weight/strength tradeoff and crumble zone development (application dependent). Keep in mind that while a casting process may seem simpler that "traditional" BIW lines, those traditional lines are highly optimized and generally very efficient and flexible (often running multiple different kind of frames over a single line) - typically employing above 95% automation. I know Tesla has struggled with their BIW lines in the past in terms of quality. I am not sure of Tesla's current situation having not really followed Tesla's process for a number of months. The advantage, I suppose, that Tesla is seeing is that they can radically simplify their BIW line. |