Little army of Kuka robots were seen being delivered to Tesla gigafactory Texas. These robots will be used to build Cybertruck electric pickup truck. It was not an army of robots to start Cybertruck manufacturing in large numbers. Potentially they are working on testing and seeing how it goes initially before starting mass production.
Kuka robots are mostly industrial arm robots used in manufacturing. It is Tesla’s preferred robot for most of its production line along with some FANUC robots. We reported on Tesla taking a massive delivery of Kuka robots at Gigafactory Texas to build the Model Y production lines last year. Now Tesla is taking delivery of another large order of Kuka robots, as spotted by a Twitter user.
66 Kuka production line robots arrived in Houston on the 18th. The Kuka robots have been used on ALL Tesla production lines, just makes most sense at this time to be in regards to #Cybertruck $tsla Check out below! Incl. example of WHAT Kuka Robots are specifically! pic.twitter.com/3K4uwuSCaR
— Greggertruck (@greggertruck) December 22, 2022
While a significantly number, 66 robots is not actually that many for most automotive production lines. This could one of several shipments coming, but Tesla has also been working to simplify its production lines and it has been able to significantly reduce production spaces needed and the number of robots over the last few years.
The timing of this shipment of robots matches Cybertruck production. Tesla starting to take delivery and install production equipment for the highly-anticipated start of production of the Cybertruck in 2023. Tesla has been guiding for a start of production in mid-2023, but it has also always said that the focus of the production teams will shift to Cybertruck once Model Y reaches volume production at Gigafactory Texas.
Production milestones
The automaker recently announced that Gigafactory Texas achieved the production of 3,000 vehicles in a week. The goal originally was 5,000 vehicles a week, which is also what Tesla generally refers to when talking about achieving “volume production”.
Tesla confirmed a production rate of 1,000 Model Ys a week back in June and confirmed having produced its 10,000th Model Y in September. Electrek reported that Tesla is currently preparing for 75,000 Model Y vehicles to come out of Gigafactory Texas next quarter (Q1 2023). That would put Tesla’s production rate at Gigafactory Texas at over 5,000 units per week throughout the whole quarter.
Even though Tesla is preparing for that kind of output in Q1 2023, it is not in a hurry to get there in Q4 as it is still establishing the logistics to be able to handle that kind of volume increase in the United States. 5,000 units per week is generally Tesla’s goal for volume production and where Tesla wants to be with the Model Y at Giga Texas before moving its focus to Cybertruck production.
