Tesla is working to address criticism that its huge ‘megacast’ underbody sections are too hard to repair, pushing up the cost of insurance, Autocar has learned.
The American EV giant pioneered the use of giant casting machines – which it calls 'gigapresses' – to eliminate almost 100 underbody parts with a single aluminium piece, cutting costs and speeding up production.
The method has split the automotive industry: some manufacturers, including Toyota, Hyundai and Ford, have declared they will embrace the technique for future models, while others, including Volkswagen, are wary.
Their wariness is partly down to the unknowns surrounding repairs. UK versions of the Tesla Model Y – the country’s best-selling EV - are built with a single rear underbody piece that encompasses the boot floor, inner wheel arches and rear chassis members. Model Ys built at Tesla’s factory in Texas and sold in the US use a single cast piece for much of the front underbody as well.
The concern of manufacturers as well as repairers and insurers is that even light crashes renders the cast piece uneconomical to repair.
Earlier this year, one Model Y owner found a crack in the front casting after a Tesla repair centre declared it safe.
The German Insurance Association (GDV) took aim at Tesla back in August, saying that cracks can form in castings “even with slight deformation” and throwing doubt on whether rear-ended Model Ys could ever be repaired economically, thereby pushing up insurance costs.
UK looks to establish Tesla megacast issues
The UK’s insurance industry wants to know for sure, so its Thatcham Research test centre near Newbury has just got its hands on a megacast section and a complete Model Y with a view of performing its own tests.
What Thatcham has seen so far at least has given it hope that Tesla has addressed the problem.
“They’ve thought about deformation in low- to medium-severity impacts and how to repair it, which is a really, really great thing to see,” said Darren Bright, Thatcham’s principle engineer for automotive repair told Autocar on a recent visit.
Tesla is supplying replacement rear-end sections to repair centres, giving them a detailed guide of how to mend the cast part not covered by replacements and, if that doesn’t work, selling them the whole cast aluminium piece for what appears to be close to cost price: £752.50 plus VAT.
“It’s really not a lot when you look at how much material is in it,” Bright said.
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And yet this morning LV are saying they will no longer insure Tesla Model S/X - not because of mega castings but because the spare/repair parts supply from Tesla to repair centres is too slow resulting in their customers spending too long in expensive hire cars. I was with LV for 20 years. They basically upped their quote to unrealistic levels to exit the market. Other existing customers have simply had their renewals turned down. They have a lot to do to convince UK Insurers on all fronts before we even get to new technology like this.