Connect with us

News

Tesla China gives sneak peek at Giga Shanghai operations with new video series

(Credit: Tesla Greater China)

Published

on

Tesla China announced that it would release a series of videos providing a sneak peek into Giga Shanghai’s operations. The first video in the series shares information about Tesla China’s cost management strategy. 

Giga Shanghai’s Layout

The first factor in Tesla China’s cost control strategy is Giga Shanghai’s layout. The stamping, welding, painting, and assembly workshops are connected to minimize “the logistics path” between each process, improving efficiency. Giga Shanghai also utilizes the longitudinal space in all its workshops through elevators and machine transportation tracks. The placement of Giga Shanghai’s docks is also a way of running the factory efficiently, which minimizes time and costs.

Elon Musk once stated that Tesla’s gigafactories would become products themselves. Tesla China seems to have taken that to heart with Giga Shanghai. 

“It can be said that the innovation of the factory itself builds [an] enforceable foundation for the innovation of the production and manufacturing. Without this foundation, cost control would be like a tree without roots or water without a source,” noted Tesla China. 

Advertisement

Tesla China R&D Center

Tesla’s local R&D Center in Shanghai was completed earlier this year. Tesla China states that the R&D Center is another pillar in its cost management strategy. The R&D Center handles essential parts of Tesla’s manufacturing process from design to testing and quality control. 

Tesla China believes the R&D Center provides a complete closed-loop product development process. It helps Giga Shanghai vehicles evolve over time by delivering precise cost management blueprints that improve the affordability of Tesla products, from its all-electric vehicles to its battery storage systems. 

Tesla Giga Shanghai Production

Tesla Giga Shanghai’s production process is yet another factor contributing to lowered costs. The process includes independent parts production. An excellent example of independent parts production would be the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y’s single-cast rear bottom plate.

Advertisement

“Take the Model 3 as an example. It needs roughly more than 70 punch-welded parts for the rear bottom plate. Most OEMs usually outsource those parts production, and they still have to set up a welding line,” said one Tesla Chain Casting Process Engineer.

“So, the whole production cycle is quite long. After we realized the one-piece casting, we only need the aluminum ingots from a supplier to manufacture it ourselves, including melting, die-casting, post-treatment, and machining. Within a very short period of time, the raw materials will be molded into a complete rear bottom plate,” he said. 

(Credit: Tesla Greater China)

The management of the docks contributes to the efficiency of production as well. The factory handles nearly 2,000 containers a day. Each customer order affects the sequence the factory transports the car parts through the assembly line. Suppliers also follow customer orders by sending parts as each order is made. 

Through this level of organization with suppliers and in Giga Shanghai, Tesla China ensures that little to no parts need to be kept in a warehouse. Giga Shanghai aims to have zero inventory. 

The supply chain significantly affects production, as can be seen in the way the docks are managed. Localizing Giga Shanghai’s supply chain was crucial in Tesla China’s cost management strategy. The local supply chain helps reduce production costs and raise the standards for parts. 

Advertisement

Tesla China’s cost control video provides a tiny glimpse into all the work and forethought that went into Giga Shanghai from layout to production. It also explains why Giga Shanghai has become cost-efficient and Tesla’s primary export hub

Giga Shanghai has helped increase Tesla’s production and delivery numbers at a monumental level. In November, Tesla China’s Global VP Grace Tao stated that Giga Shanghai aims to produce 500,000 vehicles by the end of 2021. 

Watch Tesla China’s Giga Shanghai feature in the video below. 

https://youtu.be/esa7iC0MOJ8

Advertisement

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, reach out to me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

Advertisement
Comments

Investor's Corner

Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”

Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.

Published

on

By

Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.

While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure

The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.

Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet

Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.

Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.

As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.

Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days

Published

on

Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.

Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.

On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.

The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.

The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.

Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.

Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

SpaceX’s Elon Musk relieves worries about orbital data centers

Published

on

Rendering of Elon Musk overlooking a Starship fleet (Credit: Grok)
Rendering of Elon Musk overlooking a Starship fleet (Credit: Grok)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confronted worries about orbital data centers and launching satellites in mass quantities in space, as some voiced concerns about crowding.

Musk’s SpaceX plans to combat the issue of needing data centers by launching them into space instead of taking up valuable real estate on Earth. It has been a major point of SpaceX’s future, including its looming IPO, which could be the largest ever.

In a recent interview filmed at SpaceX’s Starlink terminal factory in Bastrop, Texas, Elon Musk directly addressed concerns that deploying large numbers of AI satellites for orbital data centers could crowd Earth’s orbit. His message was straightforward and reassuring: space is vast beyond human intuition.

“Space is really big,” Musk said. “It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the Earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” He emphasized that even zooming in makes a satellite appear large, but from a planetary perspective, they are minuscule specks.

Musk pointed to SpaceX’s real-world experience operating roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites as evidence that large constellations can be managed safely. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to operate just really large constellations and do it safely,” he noted. SpaceX remains the only operator with meaningful experience at this scale, giving the company unique insight into tight orbital packing without compromising safety

The discussion highlighted SpaceX’s plans for “AI1” satellites—essentially orbiting racks of AI compute powered by massive solar arrays and cooled via radiative panels in space’s vacuum.

These satellites leverage proven Starlink V3 technology, making them simpler to design than communications satellites. A first-generation unit targets around 150 kW peak power, with a 70-meter wingspan for solar panels and radiators. Laser links will connect them to each other and the Starlink network, delivering low-latency access (on the order of a few milliseconds from low-Earth orbit).

FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan

Musk framed orbital data centers as a practical solution to Earth’s constraints on AI growth. Ground-based facilities face power shortages, water demands for cooling, and grid limitations. In space, constant sunlight (no day-night cycle), vacuum radiative cooling, and abundant solar energy offer clear advantages.

Production will ramp up at an expanded “Gigasat” factory in Bastrop, with solar manufacturing already underway and full AI satellite output expected at reasonable volume by the end of 2027. Starship’s rapid, high-volume launch capability, aiming for multiple flights per hour, will make massive deployment feasible.

Critics sometimes raise risks like space debris or Kessler syndrome, but Musk’s response underscores scale: even a million satellites would represent an imperceptible fraction of available orbital volume when viewed against Earth’s size. SpaceX’s automated collision avoidance and deorbiting designs for Starlink further mitigate concerns.

This vision ties into broader ambitions. Musk sees orbital AI compute as a step toward harnessing more of the Sun’s energy, advancing humanity on the Kardashev scale from a Type 0 civilization toward Type 1 and eventually Type 2. By moving power-hungry data centers off-planet, SpaceX aims to unlock orders-of-magnitude more compute while preserving Earth’s resources.

Musk’s comments should ease public anxiety. With proven operational expertise, incremental engineering, and the immensity of space itself, orbital data centers represent not overcrowding, but smart expansion into the final frontier.

Continue Reading