IDRA Group's Giga Press For Tesla Cybertruck "Packed And Ready To Go"

The Italian manufacturer shared a photo of the 9,000-ton Giga Press looking ready for shipping.

IDRA Group's Giga Press for Tesla Cybertruck

Dan Mihalascu

By: Dan Mihalascu

Oct 28, 2022 at 8:58am ET

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IDRA Group's Giga Press, the largest and arguably most famous high-pressure die casting machine in the world, is now packaged and headed to Tesla's Gigafactory Texas in Austin.

The Italian company making the 9,000-ton Giga Press has shared a photo on LinkedIn showing a massive shipping box at its factory in Brescia, with the caption reading: "Packed and ready to go!"

No other details were provided in the post dated October 25, but it's not a secret the Giga Press is being shipped to the Tesla plant in Austin, Texas, where production of the Cybertruck electric pickup is slated to begin in 2023 (fingers crossed for that).

Now, this latest development contradicts a report from earlier this month that claimed the Giga Press had been delivered to Tesla's Austin facility. At the time, IDRA Group had shared a video showing the final assembly and testing of the Giga Press, leading some outlets to speculate (including InsideEVs) that it had also been shipped to the US.

If everything goes according to plan, that could happen after mid-November. Why so long? Well, the Giga Press for the Tesla Cybertruck is rumored to weigh around 590 tons, and no cargo plane can handle such a payload. This means it will have to reach Texas by sea following a route through the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

As Teslarati points out, this type of voyage normally takes about two weeks, depending on which US port the press will be unloaded at. However, calculating when exactly the Giga Press will reach Austin is no easy job given the vast number of factors influencing shipping times.

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What's clear is the new press will be an essential part of the Tesla Cybertruck production line as it will be used to churn out the pickup's massive body panels and chassis components. The Giga Press being on its way to Giga Texas ties in with recent information released in Tesla's Q3 2022 Shareholder Deck in which the Tesla Cybertruck's production status is listed as "tooling," meaning it's preparing for production.

The first time Tesla mentioned the need for a gigantic press was in the Q4 2020 earnings call, when CEO Elon Musk noted that the upcoming Cybertruck would require a far larger machine than existing Tesla products. IDRA Group was not named as the manufacturer of the press at the time, but the relationship between the two companies has become public since.

Learn more about IDRA Group's Giga Press

Check Out The Impressive Tesla Giga Press By IDRA In Action