Fermér also said there are no concerns over safety, or potentially higher repair costs if a large mega-cast part is damaged – an issue that Tesla has been striving to resolve with some insurance firms. He noted Volvo’s long-standing commitment to safety, adding: “We end the mega-cast piece behind the wheelhouse and then have a bumper beam and a rear crash structure, which is a big part that we can crush and replace.
“It is possible to repair a mega-cast part to some extent, but if it’s a really severe crash, then it will be scrapped. But that’s the same for a traditional car, and probably about as likely as the main body of a current car being written off.” As well as the advantages in car design, mega-casting offers several production benefits.
These include major reductions in CO2 emissions – not just from production, but also through reducing the number of parts that need to be shipped in from outside suppliers or other Volvo factories. It allows for significantly higher material utilisation too, because any leftover aluminium can simply be melted down and re-cast.
Volvo will initially use new pressed aluminium for the process because of the need for quality control, but it is evaluating the use of recycled metal in the future – or even bringing in readymolten aluminium.
The huge mega-casting machine Volvo has constructed can cast a single rear tray in around 120 seconds and running two in parallel means it can meet the demands of the production line to produce around 60 cars an hour.
Volvo’s new mega-casting facility at Torslanda is part of a major £800 million upgrade to prepare the site for future electric car production. The company will also open a new battery assembly plant, which will construct packs using cells produced at an adjacent new production facility that will be operated by partner firm Northvolt.
Volvo also plans to use mega-casting at a new factory currently under construction in Slovakia and it could eventually be introduced across its other global plants as the need arises.