Stellantis rejects gigacasting: not pragmatic enough

Gigacasting has been touted as the go-to manufacturing innovation for cost-efficient EV production. After Tesla introduced the technique, many carmakers followed its lead or planned to do so.

But after doing the math, Stellantis has decided to sidestep the adoption of gig casting in favor of more flexible, quickly implementable solutions. A missed opportunity?

Arnaud Deboeuf is Stellantis’s Chief Manufacturing Officer and shared his company’s approach during a recent roundtable discussion hosted by Automotive Manufacturing Solutions (AMS).

He then reaffirmed the dismissal of gig casting at the company’s annual ‘Factory Booster Day’, held at Fiat’s Mirafiori plant in Turin. This event presented new manufacturing innovations to tackle challenges and improve processes.

Prioritizing quick, pragmatic solutions

Unlike some competitors, Stellantis believes gigacasting, which involves producing large vehicle sections from single aluminum castings, doesn’t offer enough value to justify the complexity and costs.

Deboeuf explained that the company prefers strategies that can be deployed without significant factory overhauls and heavy investments. As the Stellantis case proves, the divide between a clean-slate start and adaptation of existing infrastructure is always wide in EV manufacturing.

“What we are sharing today is that we are making step-by-step improvements, super-pragmatic, based on the problems we at Stellantis have,” Deboeuf said during the event to the media outlet Automotive News. “Our clients [and plant managers] are raising problems, and our partners are bringing solutions. We implement them quickly and with a global view.”

Jean-Christophe Marchal, Stellantis’ Senior Vice President of Vehicle Process Engineering, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the company’s preference for solutions that plant managers can easily implement without significant capital expenditures. “We don’t want process engineering teams to spend time adapting or modifying the path for equipment or containers, and we want to avoid digging or building anything on the shop floor,” he noted.

Stellantis is focused on digitalization and straightforward process improvements that can be seamlessly integrated into existing production lines. Or does the car group fail to take its chance at a complex but novelty process?

Problems with crash resistance?

Several automakers, including Tesla, Volvo, Nissan, Lexus, and Zeekr, have embraced gigacasting for its potential to simplify manufacturing and reduce costs in the medium run. Gigacasting uses massive die-casting machines to produce large vehicle sections in a single piece and, as such, reduces the number of parts—theoretically, that’s production efficiency.

Pioneer Tesla, for example, uses gig casting to create the rear underbody of its Model Y, replacing around 100 smaller parts with a single aluminum die-cast section. However, according to the press agency Reuters, the carmaker refrained from moving to the next level of gig casting earlier this year in a bid to slash short-term costs as sales were stagnating.

Volvo plans to deploy similar technology at its Torslanda plant in Sweden, and other automakers are following suit. However, the technology has drawbacks, particularly regarding repair and after-sales service.

Aluminum die-cast sections are difficult to repair after a crash, often leading to higher insurance costs and frequent vehicle write-offs. As a safety specialist, Volvo has already commented that the crash must be very severe to damage the gig casting piece beyond repair, to the extent that a conventional car would also be shredder-ready.

Deboeuf emphasized that Stellantis’ internal studies did not support the benefits of gigacasting. “We have done some internal study concerning Tesla’s Gigapress. Today, we don’t see the benefit. So, it might be good for Tesla—I don’t know—but for Stellantis, we just don’t see the benefit.” Upcoming EV models will tell which path is the right one.