A recent episode of Sandy Munro’s Tesla Model Y teardown series has revealed that the electric car company utilized friction stir welding (FSW) for the crossover’s thermal management system. The welding technique is commonly used among aerospace companies, like SpaceX, as a way to maintain the strength of aluminum parts while securing a reliable bond between pieces.
Munro’s analysis of the Octovalve coolant system revealed Tesla’s techniques for the revised thermal management portion of the Model Y. Munro discovered the Octovalve on April 4 after digging into the Model Y’s internal build. The new coolant assembly seemed to be a revised version of the Model 3’s “Superbottle,” which served as the heart of the sedan’s thermal management system.
A car’s thermal management apparatus is responsible for controlling and maintaining proper temperatures in critical portions of the vehicle. In the case of the Model Y, the Octovalve is responsible for motor, battery, and cabin cooling, according to Munro. The Detroit auto veteran said that typically, these systems should not be cooling the cabin if they are controlling battery or motor temperature. The thermal management system in the Model Y seems to be controlling the cabin, the battery, the electronics, and the motor nonetheless.
The Octovalve seems to be a state-of-the-art system as it uses, “some clever little ball valves that open and close to make sure that everything’s getting heated or everything’s being cooled to where it needs to be,” Munro said.
With the assembly overlooking the temperature for these many parts of the vehicle, the system is subjected to drastic and sharp temperature changes. Over time, the difference between heat and cold can begin to weaken portions of the car part, especially if it was exposed to excessive temperatures during manufacturing. This is where some SpaceX-grade solutions come into play.
Tesla chose to utilize friction stir welding for its aluminum portions of the coolant assembly. “This is a cool way of putting two parts of aluminum together, some other materials as well, but aluminum is kind of the most suited for it. And in essence, what happens is you have a stylus that spins around very very quickly. It pokes through the two pieces of metal that you want to friction stir weld. Then, it goes around the outside edge, and what it does is it uses the plastic state or thixotropic state of the aluminum to bind it together,” Munro said.
Simply put, the process allows aluminum to reach a temperature that allows two pieces of metal to come together with a strong bond, but it never turns the metal into a soft, liquid-like state. “It’s like soft butter, butter that you could see is firm, but you could cut it with a knife.”
The advantage of using this process is that the heat from the welding process only applies to the outer edges of the metal. The additional material that is not bonded to anything does not see the heat and is not weakened by the welding process. Stir welding is also time effective as it can be completed in a short period, but it is a careful process that does not apply unneeded stress upon the rest of the assembly.
SpaceX uses friction stir welding for its rockets, as it increases strength by exposing only the bonded portions of two pieces of metal to each other. Friction stir welding was used by SpaceX back in 2008 when the company was combining barrel sections of the Falcon 9’s second stage. “The FSW joins metal without flames, sparking, inert gasses, or fumes, and produces a far superior weld in aluminum-lithium alloys as compared to traditional methods,” SpaceX said in a news update.
In the spirit of humor, Tesla and Elon Musk saw the Octovalve as a perfect opportunity to not only improve the performance of the vehicle temperature regulation system but also as an appropriate time to sprinkle in some additional humor in the form of an Easter Egg. The Model 3 donned a cape-wearing bottle-figured superhero for its “Superbottle” system, while the Model Y includes a snowflake-stamped Octopus as an Easter Egg.
Tesla has increased the effectiveness of its thermal management with the introduction of the Model Y’s Octovalve system. Elon Musk stated that it was some of the best engineering he had ever seen. The welding process could increase the longevity of the machine through its lack of exposure to excessive heat and stress during manufacturing.
Watch Munro’s video on the Model Y’s Octovalve welding below.
The 2025 Tesla Annual Shareholder Meeting from Gigafactory Texas is set to kick off at 4 p.m. EDT, 3 p.m. CDT.
The company will be having its typical presentation for the event, where CEO Elon Musk, along with other executives will discuss things like future products, the outlook of its self-driving development, potential releases for next year, and some current events within the company.
However, this year’s Shareholder Meeting has slightly more implications than others, as Investors and Shareholders have spent the last several months petitioning and supporting one of the proposals on the docket that could be the deciding factor in Musk staying or leaving Tesla.
Elon Musk’s new pay plan ties trillionaire status to Tesla’s $8.5 trillion valuation
Proposal four outlines a new compensation package for Musk that could give him $1 trillion in shares if he is able to complete a variety of lofty goals related to production, self-driving, and other important company projects.
Musk has said that he is truly after more influence on company decisions, especially as the Tesla Optimus program is ramping up and becoming a more relevant part of the company’s story.
The CEO said during the Q3 Earnings Call that he would not feel comfortable developing an “army of robots” if he did not have a comfortable amount of influence in some of the decisions. He could be voted our or out-influenced by what he calls “activist shareholders.”
One of those investors came after his past pay package, which was approved by shareholders not once, but twice. Musk still was not able to obtain the pay because of a Delaware Chancery Court ruling.
Nevertheless, this is one of the last ditch efforts Tesla is making to get Musk the compensation that he wants.
The meeting is set to kick off at 3 p.m. local time in Austin. You can watch it via the livestream on X:
Here is the link to Tesla’s 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting:https://t.co/29dN4gkMWY
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 6, 2025
News
Tesla Cybercab sightings on public roads are becoming more frequent
After it was unveiled a year ago by Tesla, the company has made some pretty drastic jumps in progress in terms of the Cybercab, but a recent development has truly pushed fans of the company to think it is probably going to be available soon.
Tesla Cybercab sightings on public roads are becoming much more frequent, and they all are pointing to one thing: imminent production.
The Tesla Cybercab is the company’s vehicle developed for fully autonomous travel, as it will be manufactured without a steering wheel or pedals, according to CEO Elon Musk.
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After it was unveiled a year ago by Tesla, the company has made some pretty drastic jumps in progress in terms of the Cybercab, but a recent development has truly pushed fans of the company to think it is probably going to be available soon.
Last week, we reported on the first Cybercab sighting when the vehicle was finally being tested on public roads. The spotting was not a one-time deal, as we are now seeing many more sightings on public roads:
Saw it the other day pic.twitter.com/uv0geR6GIh
— Shareef Mahmoud (@saltyyshareef) November 6, 2025
The first spotting was in Palo Alto, just a few blocks from Tesla’s Engineering Headquarters in Los Altos. This second sighting appears to be relatively close to that first spotting, and it seems unlikely Tesla would be putting it on roads much further than that.
The public on-road testing of the Cybercab marks a major milestone in the entire project for Tesla. These early sightings and testing phases are usually followed by a lot of speculation about when the vehicle could end up in the hands of customers.
However, Tesla has already put a definitive date on when Cybercab production will begin, as Elon Musk said during the Q3 Earnings Call that it would roll off production lines in Q2 of next year.
But the speculation regarding the Cybercab is slightly different than other vehicles because Tesla has been developing it for fully autonomous travel; it’s not meant to be driven by humans but instead by software and the company’s Full Self-Driving suite.
Despite the vehicle being spotted with a steering wheel and pedals in the recent sightings, Musk has maintained that the Cybercab will not be developed with typical controls for a human. He recently confirmed this, and it does not seem the company is willing to veer too much from its plans for an autonomous car.
News
Tesla Model Y Performance is rapidly moving toward customer deliveries
New drone images from noted drone operator and Gigafactory Texas observer Joe Tegtmeyer show Tesla is moving forward quickly in terms of its progress in producing the new Model Y Performance.
Tesla has rapidly progressed in the production of its most anticipated Model Y trim level: the Model Y Performance.
New drone images from noted drone operator and Gigafactory Texas observer Joe Tegtmeyer show Tesla is moving forward quickly in terms of its progress in producing the new Model Y Performance.
The vehicle is being spotted more frequently at the factory located just outside of Austin, with what appears to be the first units rolling out to outbound lots:
In case you missed the news, Giga Texas has begun Model Y Performance production. Now all variants of the Model Y (except the China-only YL) are built in Texas. pic.twitter.com/AOOB9jtLwN
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) November 6, 2025
In the United States, Tesla unveiled the Model Y Performance on September 30, the newest iteration of the fastest trim level of the best-selling car in the world for the past two years. It was launched on the very last day of the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit in the United States.
It featured a handful of performance improvements, including a 0-60 MPH acceleration rate of 3.3 seconds, a trim from the 3.5 seconds the 2025 version offered.
Additionally, the range has gone from 277 miles to 308 miles, a notable improvement in terms of how far it can travel on a charge.
There are also a handful of hardware changes that Tesla made to improve its aerodynamic performance, which all likely can be attributed to the boost in speed and acceleration, as well as range.
The vehicle was initially launched in Europe, which was not surprising, especially as Tesla was testing the new Performance trim at the famed Nurburgring in Germany.
Deliveries are currently slated for late November, but some orders are getting projections of mid-December for their Model Y Performance, which would help Tesla bolster its end-of-year delivery figures and follow up on an extremely bullish finish to Q3, which was the company’s strongest performance in history.
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