NAGOYA, Japan -- Toyota Motor showed off a prototype of its new gigacasting equipment that can make a third of a car body in about three minutes, a development that will be key to its plans to ramp up electric-vehicle production profitably in the coming years.
The machine at the Japanese automaker's Myochi plant released a plume of white smoke as it ran during a recent demonstration for journalists. Molten aluminum poured in was rapidly cooled from 700 C to 250 C, solidifying into a single die-cast piece making up the entire rear third of the vehicle chassis. This is normally built from 86 parts in a 33-step process that takes hours.
