Imagine a single piece of cast aluminum that replaces about 60 separate components that are progressively assembled before becoming a complete sub assembly.
In doing so, a manufacturer saves about 40 percent of its tooling investment, consumes about 30 percent less energy and generates a finished part that is 30 percent lighter than an all-steel solution and about 10 percent lighter than a solution that includes several parts in aluminum.
The term Giga Press was coined by Idra CEO Riccardo Ferrario for the first order of an OL 5500 CS HPDC machine in May 2019, the Italian company said in a release announcing that the term had been added to online encyclopedia Wikipedia. A Giga Press is a series of high-pressure aluminum die casting machines. Molten aluminum weighing more than 100 kg is injected into the cold-chamber casting mold with a velocity of 10 meters per second. The cycle time is about 120 seconds, resulting in 30 completed castings an hour. About 500 castings can be produced each day using three 8-hour shifts.
The maximum width of a casting is 2.2 meters. The castings are currently used for front and rear underbodies, but Idra is working to add castings of battery cases and central platforms that incorporate battery cases. Idra's Gigi Press ranges in size from 19.7 x 7 x 6 meters to 22 x 8x 6.5 meters and have a clamping force ranging from 5,500 to 9,000 metric tons.
This is possible thanks to the creation of what the head of a small Italian die casting specialist calls a Giga Press. Riccardo Ferrario, the 64-year-old CEO of Idra, coined the terms in May 2019 (see box, right) for the new manufacturing technique that Tesla was the first to use and Volvo plans to start employing by mid-decade.
Meanwhile Mercedes-Benz used the one-part casting method to form the rear of the EQXX concept it debuted last month at the CES in Las Vegas, and Chinese automaker Nio is also interested in the technology.
While Ferrario would not confirm whether Tesla is a customer, there is detailed information online describing how the U.S. electric car maker converted a parking lot at its factory in Freemont, California, to house its first Idra Giga Press.
There are also pictures of that Giga Press with both the Tesla and Idra logos. Tesla began using Idra's Giga Press at the Freemont factory in August 2020 to create the Model Y's rear underbody, according to media reports.
‘Customers laughed'
While Ferrario was tight-lipped about his company's Tesla ties, he was willing to speak to Automotive News Europe about why and how Idra created the Giga Press, which took three years to create and cost 1.8 million euros ($1.97 million) to make a reality.
Like many new inventions, the first Giga Press that Idra presented at the GIFA equipment trade fair in Germany in 2019 was initially greeted with ridicule.
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“All potential customers laughed at the idea, saying we could never make it work,” Ferrario said from his office in Travagliato, near Brescia, in a video chat with ANE on Feb. 15.
Undaunted, Idra's 2019 product catalogue included an item known as OL 5500 CS, it's first Giga Press. The number 5500 corresponds to the clamping force of the press in metric tons. A year later, production started on Idra's first Giga Press.
Fast forward to now and Idra has sold 22 Giga Presses. Seven are in operation, five are being installed at customers' plants and 10 still need to be delivered.
Ferrario said it takes a year from order to having a Giga Press operational.
Before the introduction of technique, die casts using up to 4,000 tons of clamping force were able to create structural castings with a maximum of two cavities, generally referred as shock towers.
Increasing the clamping force to 6,100 tons, Idra created the first Giga Press capable of a multi-cavity casting with up to four shock towers in one injection. In practice, the Giga Press can produce a rear underbody frame in a single piece.
Idra is a 76-year-old, company based near Brescia, northern Italy, that has about 12,000 hydraulic presses in operation at 1,500 customers around the world.
Idra is a fully owned subsidiary of China's LK Machinery, which bought a controlling stake in the company from creditors banks in 2008 and then completed the takeover in 2010.
21 NDAs
Two years after the Giga Press was laughed at Idra held an open house in November 2021, attracting 200 guests from around the world to Travagliato to see a Giga Press with 5,500 tons of clamping force undergo final testing prior to shipment.
“After that open day, we generated 21 non-disclosure-agreements with potential customers, including several automakers,” Ferrario said.
He said Volkswagen Group and Volvo Cars were the automakers that are closest to deciding on whether to move to megacasting for their future vehicles.
When asked again about Tesla, Ferrario neither confirmed nor denied whether Idra is working with the company, despite industry insiders confirming that Tesla's new plant near Berlin will use several Idra Giga Presses to create the front and rear underbody platform for the Model Y SUV.
Savings potential
Ferrario said that a one-shot casting of a front or rear platform from a Giga Press replaces up to 250 pieces and reduces weigh by 10 to 30 percent (depending on the mix of steel and alloys used in a traditionally built platform).
On the investment side, he said that a Giga Press saves a customer about 40 percent because it replaced a series of tools and up to 200 meters of robotized welding lines that put together the parts to create a complete front or rear platform.
Industry insiders believe this could eliminate up to 300 robots, which also helps an automaker reduce its energy consumption. Production time is slashed because it is faster to create a single casting than to produce the same part by welding together up to 60 different pieces.
Idra estimates the new production technique can deliver three vehicles in the time it takes for one vehicle to be make using today's typical processes.
Building a complete underbody in three pieces also means just three product code numbers instead of more than 200 for a traditional solution.
“All of the above is moving us toward a more sustainable car manufacturing process,” Ferrario said.
Future applications
Idra's Giga Press started by producing rear platforms and then added front platforms. In theory, Ferrario said, the central platform is the next piece that could come out of a Giga Press.
“But we do not design cars,” he said. “We design die casting equipment for what the automakers require.”
He foresees the Giga Press being used next to make large battery cases for full-electric cars.
A next step would be to include the battery case in the central platform, making it a structural part of the vehicle.
When asked whether a Giga Press could one day make an entire traditional passenger car platform in a single casting, Ferrario said this would not work for larger traditional cars because the machines needed would be too big.
He said, however, that a Giga Press would create an entire platform for a small battery electric car.
“In China, we see a growing interest for minicars about the size of the original Smart ForTwo, where a 2.2-meter single-piece platform cast by a Giga Press could work well,” he said.
