autoevolution
 

Legacy Carmakers Can't Copy Tesla Fast Enough As Megacastings Enter the Mainstream

Although carmakers have used die-casting in the past, Tesla was the first to use single-piece megacastings to replace massive sections of the car body. Traditional carmakers now copy the move, as IDRA announced its first Giga Press contract from a "legacy global US OEM."
First IDRA Giga Press not produced for Tesla 6 photos
Photo: IDRA
IDRA GigaPressIDRA GigaPressIDRA GigaPress at Giga TexasTesla's 4680 Structural Battery PackTesla mega casting
Many believed that traditional carmakers would have no problem surpassing Tesla, thanks to their superior manufacturing capabilities. They failed to account for the ingenuity of Tesla engineers and that building electric vehicles would require entirely new expertise. Tesla transformed car manufacturing in many ways, from the production line to the supply chain and technologies. That's why Tesla gigafactories look a lot different than traditional car plants and produce double the number of cars annually.

One of the most important innovations Tesla brought to car manufacturing was using megacastings to replace hundreds of stamped parts welded together. Thanks to IDRA's gigantic die-casting machines called Giga Presses, Tesla could cast huge sections of the car's underbody in a fraction of the time needed to stamp and weld the same parts using the traditional method. Die-cast parts also don't need thermal treatment, another time-consuming operation.

This eliminated about 650 feet (200 meters) of robotized welding lines on the factory floor and allowed Tesla to reduce the time it takes to assemble a car to only 10 hours. Considering that Volkswagen needs 30 hours to put together the ID.3 compact, it's clear why traditional carmakers struggle to make a profit on electric vehicles. But things are changing, and legacy carmakers have shown they are willing to learn.

IDRA announced that it signed the first contract to supply its famous Giga Presses to a traditional carmaker. The brief announcement on LinkedIn doesn't mention the company's name but says it's a global US OEM, which narrows the scope to just three companies: Stellantis, General Motors, and Ford. All three have announced ambitious steps to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.

GM has been the most bullish in this regard, vowing to surpass Tesla by swamping the market with electric vehicles. Yet, we know from a previous report that GM already uses die-casting for the Cadillac Celestiq body. Still, the Detroit carmaker is concerned with the repairability of megacastings. To alleviate this, it uses six smaller castings for Celestiq's underbody frame, bonded and spot-welded into a single floor pan. We don't think GM would need Giga Presses for this task, so we can rule it out as IDRA's customer.

That leaves us with Ford and Stellantis. Both companies plan a host of electric vehicles, but Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has been more reluctant to embrace electromobility. On the other hand, Ford is developing at least two new EV-only platforms, the GE2 to underpin the future generation Mustang Mach-E from 2026 and the TE1 for the next F-150 Lightning, Ranger BEV, and Bronco BEV. Ford CEO Jim Farley has also admired Elon Musk and Tesla. Considering all these, our bets are on Ford.

If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
About the author: Cristian Agatie
Cristian Agatie profile photo

After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories