We already have talked about Hyundai Motor Group and their plans to introduce a Tesla-like Giga Casting system, to be called Hyper Casting. Accoding to the latest information from ETNews, Hyundai is already building its first Hyper Casting factory near construction site of new EV-plant in Ulsan.
Today, Hyundai Motor’s labor-management and Ulsan City have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with mutual cooperation for the establishment of a new Hyper Casting factory in Hyundai Motor’s Ulsan plant.
“Hyper Casting” is known to be a method that benchmarks Tesla’s ‘Giga-casting’. Giga-casting is a method of casting the entire car body by casting a special aluminum alloy plate at once using an ultra-large press machine (Giga Press, made by Italian company Idra) that can apply a force of 6,000 to 9,000 tons. Production costs can be significantly reduced.
The process can be simplified compared to the existing method of making a car body by drilling thousands of holes in about 70 steel plates and assembling and welding them one by one. Tesla is known to have significantly increased production speed and reduced costs by about 30% using this method, which was first introduced in 2020. It is also advantageous to improve the performance of electric vehicles through weight reduction.
Hyundai Motor will start construction of a hypercasting-related body parts production plant such as a casting and processing factory and a mold factory on a site with a total floor area of about 24,000 pyeong in the Ulsan plant in July this year. It is planned to be built with the goal of mass production in 2026.
Hyundai Motor’s CEO Lee Dong-seok said, “Hyundai Motor’s Ulsan plant will lead manufacturing innovation by establishing a hypercasting factory that applies advanced manufacturing methods to pre-occupy the global electric vehicle market. We will actively seek continuous investment so that Ulsan can become the center of eco-friendly automobile production.”
