Tesla Model Y: Engineering from First Principles

Tesla is an innovative company that never rests on its laurels. That its Model Y is the best-selling car in the world is the best proof of that. The car is designed with the first principles approach in mind, which is what makes it so special.

Tesla Model Y is a work of art

There are hundreds of car companies around the world producing thousands of different car models. Of them all, only one stands out and that is Tesla Model Y. The electric SUV is the best-selling vehicle in the first five months of 2023, and it looks like it will hold the lead for the rest of the year. So what makes Model Y so special? What makes buyers opt for this particular car? The answer is obvious: the car is a work of art.

Innovation at Tesla never stops

Model Y is a compact SUV, which means that it is in the most popular car segment today. This of course partly explains its popularity. However, the real magic lies in the engineering. Tesla vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, explains the development of the electric vehicle in a recently released video: Model Y | Engineering From First Principles.

A first principles approach

Moravy said that Tesla always uses a first principles approach to find innovative solutions to problems. He explained that the company is not going to constantly use the same developments for many years, so it is constantly creating something new.

“You don’t get to say, well, we’ve done that for 50 years, so that’s the way we’re going to do it for the next 50, You have to prove everything you’re doing from the ground up, with, you know, first principles of physics and mechanics. Really, that’s our boundary – what does physics say is the envelope? That’s as far as we’ll take things.”

Moravy cited the example of the single-piece casting, which is used for the production of Model Y. Thanks to this development, the company was able to abandon the use of dozens of parts, replacing it with only one. Of course, this would not have been possible if Tesla, with the help of SpaceX, had not developed a special secret alloy.

For the industry, the problem is that when making huge pieces of aluminum, they deform. To give strength and durability, they must be heat-treated in huge furnaces, which is also difficult. That is why we see so many manufacturers simply joining dozens of individual parts together to form the front and rear end of a car. Tesla’s innovative development of a new alloy solved this problem.

It is Tesla’s constant drive to be innovative and to improve its cars and their manufacturing process that makes the company so special and its cars so desirable.