So much German technology is in Tesla

Dusseldorf Last year, Dirk Howe received an inquiry that surprised him at first: could his company manufacture the parts for a car press almost 30 percent lighter? And that in eight weeks? “That doesn’t work at all”, was the first thought of the managing director of the Siempelkamp Giesserei in Krefeld. Because a so-called plastic injection molding press has to be heavy. The structural parts can weigh 100 tons to press door linings or speedometer units for cars.

The request came from a mechanical engineering company in German-speaking countries who wanted to land an order for the Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin. In order to win the bid, the company wanted to offer a lighter press with the same or better performance. The pitch to Tesla: The electric car pioneer from California could save a lot of energy and costs in production.