Munro Live Checks What Is Under The Hood Of Giga Texas Tesla Model Y

It's almost like a different car.

22:57

Mark Kane

By: Mark Kane

Jul 7, 2022 at 3:25pm ET

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In the latest episode of Munro Live, Cory Steuben and Carl Crittenden present what is under the hood of the Made-in-Texas (MIT) Tesla Model Y.

The team already removed the battery pack, together with seats, and now takes a look at the stuff under the frunk (front trunk).

As it turns out, there are a lot of changes compared to the 2020 Tesla Model Y. The main thing is of course the front megacasting and a tsunami of new or revised parts. Some parts are gone, replaced by a different solution.

Some of the changes are just to adapt the parts to the new, highly integrated megacasting, while others were upgraded. It proves that Tesla constantly evolves and changes its products, even those which have been on the market for just a few years.

Not everything is known yet, as the video is just a basic walkthrough, after the few first days of the car in the shop. Some things, like parts welded to the casting, raise questions that are not yet answered, but it's very interesting engineering talk.

Carl Crittenden will prepare a further episode, focused on the fit and finish, which might be very interesting from the customer standpoint. The switch to a higher integration level, with megacastings replacing many smaller parts, was expected to improve consistent assembly quality. However, as we can see at the end of the episode, already one example of a misaligned part was found.

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk wrote recently that the MIT Model Y's structural battery pack (with 4680-type cylindrical battery cells) is "far from optimized", and this is potentially how we should treat this all-new Model Y - an ongoing project in an early stage.

What do you think?

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Tesla might be willing to change and adjust many other parts over the course of the current and next year, before the new system (front and rear megacastings with a structural battery pack) will spread through the lineup and to other factories.

As of today, the Tesla Giga Texas plant is ramping up production of reportedly two versions: the new 4680-powered, and the conventional 2170-powered (due to the limited availability of the new type of battery cells).