Sandy Munro Shares His Thoughts On Why Tesla Has No Competitors, Tesla Cybertruck & Octovalve & Gigapress, & More
In his latest video on Solving The Money Problem, Steven Mark Ryan shared his thoughts on Sandy Munro, who recently spoke about Tesla’s giant gigapress, its huge casting machine, the octovalve and heat pump, the Cybertruck’s exoskeleton, and the crash safety of the Cybertruck. Munro also speaks about Tesla’s 4680 battery cells, the importance of work ethic, and his thoughts on Tesla’s decision to not spend money on advertising nor having a PR department.
In the video, Ryan shared Munro’s clips and added his own comments throughout. What stood out to me was the headline emphasizing that Tesla has no competitors. Sure, there’s legacy auto, and Elon Musk once noted that the millions of gas cars coming out daily are competition, but there is no actual competition that will “destroy” Tesla. Also, there’s another fleet of rising EV startups that will join Tesla in the fight to electrify transport.
“Anyway, who’s the biggest competitor to Tesla?
“None. There are no competitors to Tesla. But when they do come, they’ll be Chinese.” — Sandy Munro
Tesla/Idra Gigapress
Munro explained that the gigapress beats out standard stamping if you’re making a brand new product and you’re going to be making more than a hundred thousand units of the vehicle per year. He noted that the break-even point for the gigapress will probably be north of 100,000 vehicles before it is a benefit financially.
“Then it’s gonna really shine. It’ll beat the pants off a stamped and welded carriage — lower platform.”
He explained that the gigapress with tooling will cost much less than a stamped product made from steel.
“If you’re going to be building a car that’s a hundred thousand or more and you don’t have any bodyshop right now, why would you even think about buying one?”
To sharpen the edge of Munro’s point, Ryan noted that any car manufacturer who is new would be a moron if they didn’t try to copy exactly what Tesla has done and do a gigantic casting. Ryan pointed out the importance of Munro saying that Idra, which is the name of the company that produces the gigapress, is your friend.
Tesla Cybertruck, Ford Mustang Mach-E
When asked if he would buy a Model Y or a Mach-E, Munro explained that both vehicles are great and his own response would be due to his personal vehicle preferences, and he’s actually waiting on the Cybertruck. He also said he doesn’t know enough about the new Ford model yet, so he’s holding off on any full-throated endorsements until they have a deeper look.
“I have recommended both the Model Y, the Model 3, and the Mach-E to friends, and I said that’s tentative. And I said don’t buy one until we tear it apart — the Mach-E.”
He also spoke about the Cybertruck’s exoskeleton.
“The exoskeleton upstairs is looking at basically a big monolith design. It’s one big giant structure. It’s going to have some welding and things like that here and there, but for the most part, it’ll have a lot less parts than what we would find inside of a conventional, say, F-150 or something.”
Munro pulled out a picture that showed that the whole platform for the Cybertruck is three gigantic pieces.
“This makes a big difference. My bodyshop is going to shrink by 80% — 75–80% for sure. There’s no robots, there’s no welding, there’s no people needed.”
Ryan noted that this was spot on and was the very reason he started his YouTube channel — to share his thoughts on the Cybertruck.
“[The Cybertruck had been designed to look the way that it looks for engineering reasons rather than for aesthetic reasons.] … It was intentionally designed to be extremely cheap, fast, and efficient to manufacture, deleting an enormous number of parts and processes, getting rid of the entire stamping shop.”
Munro said that it’s something a lot less complicated and that it will be a lot easier to put in the essentials such as wires and hoses for brakes.
“I can design it if I’m using an exoskeleton design or the mega casting designs, I can weave all my wires. I don’t have to have much of anything. Every feature I need is already going to be there.”
SpaceX Visit & Apple EV
When asked about his thoughts about Apple getting into the automotive industry, Sandy just said, “NDA,” meaning that he can’t talk about it. Ryan pointed out that he would love to know what Munro knows about Apple’s plans for an electric vehicle.
Regarding the SpaceX visit he recently made to interview Elon Musk, Munro noted that one thing that many people may not know is that he and Corey spent around an hour and a half after the interview in a design review for a rocket engine.
“That was pretty interesting that we would be invited to do that. I only made one suggestion. Elon thought it was maybe worthwhile.”
He also noted that they were still working when it was late at night. He pointed out that this work is the reason for both Tesla’s and SpaceX’s success.
Super Bottle, PTC Heating vs. Heat Pump with Octovalve
This is something that Munro has kind of anticipated. He pointed out that when the super bottle came out, he was really excited.
“But, when you do a comparison in cost and efficiency and actually the drain that there is on the batteries, this may be great for a nice vehicle now. If I was still at Ford, I would definitely be considering this if I had a nice vehicle instead of what I’ve got now. It’s a bottle here, a bottle there, a bottle everywhere.”
Munro also talks about the magic of Tesla’s engineering with the octovalve and the heat pump. On this, Ryan shared his thoughts.
“Tesla put their gigantic engineering brains together and managed to do something quite incredible. They reduced parts, reduced processes, integrated an enormous amount, saved weight, extended range, and also basically just swung around the gigantic throbbing engineering brains and flexed on the entire automotive industry who could have done the same thing decades ago — yet didn’t.”
Tesla’s Choice Not To Buy Ads Or Have A PR
Munro shared his thoughts on Tesla’s decision to not buy ads or to have a PR department.
“What a great idea. Somebody else should think of that too. I mean, Tesla gets in the news every day. Why? Because they have a leader. Can you tell me who the president of Volkswagen is? Do you know who the president of Ford is? Do you know who GM is run by? Do you know who runs Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai? No, you don’t know any of them. But you do know who’s running Tesla. Why would I need to have advertising if I had somebody like that at the helm? Why would I need advertising? Why would I need PR?”
Ryan noted that Sandy Munro pointed out, indirectly, that the only automotive company with a competent leader is Tesla. “I mean, you don’t even know the names of the CEO,” he said, referring to the rest of the automakers. For those who may have heard of Herbert Deiss or Mary Barra, it’s probably due to watching so many videos on Tesla. (This is actually true for me.)
If it wasn’t for my writing and interactions with Elon Musk and the Tesla community, I wouldn’t know much about who runs which automaker, and it should be noted that both Munro and Ryan are talking about the average person knowing the names of these CEOs and presidents off the top of their heads. If you go to your local grocery store and ask the cashier if they know who the president of Kia is, they probably won’t know unless they are a die-hard Kia fan or very engrossed in the automotive world.
Watch the full video here.
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Latest CleanTechnica.TV Video
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
