I have been an adamant admirer of Elon Musk ever since his name and work became more widely recognized, since my childhood dream was to travel to space or work for Nasa. However, that dream may probably stay as a dream but nevertheless, his influence in technology progression especially in terms of automobile and spacecraft has awed so many people even if the ideas were weren’t original; he still made it work while others couldn’t. In this short essay, I want to share one of Elon’s finest works, the Giga Press Technology, how it functions and its purpose as well as my thoughts on this topic. However, there’s not a lot to talk about the Giga Press, so I will keep this short and simple.
Tesla’s Giga Press, developed by the IDRA Group in Italy, designed a massive casting machine that could produce large single pieces of a car’s frame. This is the next innovative approach to mass production of cars. The Giga Press is known to be one of the largest die casting machines in the world, and if you are not familiar with die casting machines; it refers to a machine that goes through a manufacturing process used to produce complex metal parts with high degree of calculated precision and detail. This die “machine” is made from durable material that is capable of withstanding high pressure and temperatures, often being made out of steel or some type of alloy. It’s size and capability to exert a clamping force up to 6,000 tons is incredible; usually when creating complicated aluminum part takes time by assembling from smaller pieces. However, this machine allows it to create those larger frames flawlessly.
In terms of Macroeconomic views, the automation from technologies like the Giga Press reduces the need for certain harsh labor when manufacturing heavy metal parts. But we also need to keep in mind that creating these types of machines requires extremely highly skilled workers, such as engineers and machine operators who can operate these systems. We can see that there’ll be a shift in Job roles or displacements.
Let’s take a look at the implications of the Giga Press to the Industry 4.0, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which represent a significant change in the way most industries will operate, implementing digital technology into all side of every business. The Giga Press will play a significant role in advancing Industry 4.0, by again reducing the number of steps to produce parts of the vehicle and minimize human error. This will be the cornerstone of Industry 4.0 which makes these industries smarter and more efficient.
In my opinion, I don’t see a reason why Tesla shouldn’t utilize this type of production. It’s cost effective, it increases manufacturing efficiency, the quality of the product is improved by a huge margin, reduced waste, environmental benefits; by using less material and energy to produce each vehicle; and gives more innovative design and job opportunities. With all that being said, there “were” obvious downsides when they were still implementing this process, which were the initial investment costs, high risk for defects and scale limitations but it all paid off and it’s successful.
In conclusion, I see this as a big step forward in terms of both technological progresses just like the industry 4.0 and the macroeconomic implications such as productivity, employment, trade, and environmental sustainability. This has a potential to continuously enhance economic growth and competitiveness as well as diving into challenges that will relate to employment shifts or workforce adaptations. There will be definitely back and forth changes between policymakers and industry leaders to try and maximize benefits as much as possible.
This article is a part of the class
“751309 Macro Economic 2”
supervised by Asst. Prof. Napon Hongsakulvasu
Faculty of Economics, Chiang Mai University
This article was written by
Gon Kodama 651615503
Sources:
Giga Press – Wikipedia