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Originally Posted by MyHybridBurnsGasAndTires
its good for tesla to pad their profit margins by cutting labor and material costs but i still have doubts about these large superstructures when it comes to repairs.
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It depends. It doesn't take much to total a car, but the car could be fixed. There are replaceable parts on the front for low speed crashes. What you are really talking about is a goldilocks zone of being significant, but not too significant. I think anything is repairable with replacement parts, but yes, there may be a goldilocks case where a typical car might be repairable and a gigacasting is not.
I really feel we may be needing to adapt for just a short time (decades not centuries) before most driving moves to autonomous driving. Accidents could be greatly minimized in the future with autonomous driving making the issue a moot point.
Also, I would expect these savings will work down to the consumer in the form of lower prices, especially in competitive markets. This is what we are seeing in China.