Wencan Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wencan Shares), one of the leaders in the integrated die-casting industry, issued two announcements yesterday showing the recent die-casting structural parts and some strategic cooperation progress.
Among them, the more interesting news is that a 6000T die-casting equipment has completed the first half-piece rear floor trial production on November 18 last year, "at present, the trial production products have been completed in the well-known head of the new power customer oem completed the body-in-white installation of the production line." ”
The well-known new head power mentioned here refers to Nio, and the model that has completed the body-in-white roll-off should be the ET5 that will begin delivery in September this year.
As the core supplier of WEILAI body structural parts, Wencan co., Ltd. mainly produces the above rear floor in the Nantong factory through the subordinate Xiongbang Die Casting (Nantong) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Nantong Xiongbang).
According to the information previously released by NIO DAY, after the integrated casting process, the weight of the rear floor will be reduced by 30%, the trunk space will be increased by 11L, and the torsional stiffness of the vehicle will reach 34,000 N·m/deg.
As we all know, the first to use integrated die casting technology in automobile manufacturing is Tesla, through the large tonnage die casting machine will be highly integrated with the previously independent dispersed aluminum alloy parts, one time into 1-2 large aluminum castings, these large aluminum castings are welded together.
In the financial report document disclosed in the first quarter of 2020, Tesla showed for the first time that after using integrated die-casting technology, the number of rear body parts was reduced from 70 blocks of Model 3 to 2 blocks of Model Y, and said that "there may even be only 1 piece in the future". According to the car seat design, in fact, the Model Y produced at the Shanghai plant in 2021 has already achieved 1 piece.
(Image source see watermark, invasion and deletion)
After a significant reduction in the number of parts, the production time of the same parts is reduced from at least two hours to 80-90 seconds, the weight of the rear of the vehicle is reduced by 30%, and the production cost per vehicle is reduced by 20%-40%.
It can be said that compared with the traditional stamping - welding - painting - final assembly manufacturing process, the integrated die casting technology significantly simplifies the process, which is beneficial to the production efficiency, body weight, and improvement of manufacturing costs.
Stirred by the industry catfish, new forces such as Weilai and Xiaopeng, as well as traditional car manufacturers such as Volvo, have followed up on integrated die-casting technology.
Judging from the information disclosed by Wencan shares, the one-piece die casting technology applied to ET5 should be more similar to the early two-piece state of Model Y.
It should be noted that the supplier of 6000T Giga Press for Tesla, IDRA, was acquired by China LK Group as early as 2008, that is, the upstream supplier of die casting machines for Wencan shares.
However, Weilai, which has tesla's same upstream supplier, still has slight differences in route selection. Tesla and IDRA have partnered to develop integrated die-casting technology, and the machine is inside the Tesla factory, reducing the cost of long-distance transportation of parts; NIO prefers Wencan as a supplier. Therefore, in addition to Nantong Xiongbang under Wencan Shares, Chongqing Meriture is also a supplier of Weilai.
Among China's new forces, only Xiaopeng has adopted a self-research model similar to Tesla's.
At the end of last year, Guangdong Hongtu Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Guangdong Hongtu), which is a competitor with Wencan Shares, announced that it has entered the supporting system of Xiaopeng Automobile, and the two sides will carry out synchronous development in integrated parts.
According to industry insiders, Xiaopeng's Zhaoqing factory will adopt the Weilai model, and Guangdong Hongtu will directly supply integrated die-cast parts. However, in the latest Wuhan factory, there is a self-built die-casting workshop, and it is expected to debug the equipment in May and press out the sample in July.
Judging from the latest news released by the official, Xiaopeng Wuhan factory is expected to be officially put into operation in October this year, which means that the domestic self-developed integrated die casting technology is expected to be made public as soon as October.
He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, also made it clear at the first quarter of this year's financial report meeting that the next step will be to reduce manufacturing costs through more advanced manufacturing processes, including integrated die casting technology, thereby improving the company's gross profit margin. Perhaps it can be expected that the Xiaopeng Wuhan factory will also be like Tesla's Texas factory, and the factory itself will become a rational layout machine.
In addition, Volvo has also clearly put integrated die casting on the agenda, and it is expected to be applied on the new pure electric platform in 2025. According to Wencan shares, traditional OEMs are also talking to them and will use integrated die casting on the next generation of products.
Fundamentally, outsourcing or self-development, the core element is the amount of delivery. According to industry statistics, the monthly output of 8000-10000 pieces is regarded as a high utilization rate of die casting machines and good business; if a single model cannot reach this amount per month, the cost of integrated die casting in the main engine factory workshop will be very high. This is also the main reason why Weilai chose external supply.
However, for traditional enterprises with scale, there are still problems such as the continuation of existing investment equipment. So it may be more likely that they will switch new technologies on new models.
At present, the structural parts produced by integrated die-casting are mainly the rear floor, and in the future, the front floor, the middle floor, and even the integrated die-casting development of the entire body-in-white are developed. As a result, the one-piece die casting machine will also develop towards a larger tonnage.
Tesla has clearly planned to apply the Giga Press die-cast integrated structural parts with a clamping force of 8000T on cyberruck last year, and the equipment is also provided by IDRA; in the Chinese market, Guangdong Hongtu announced the successful roll-off of its 6800T new energy vehicle chassis integrated die-casting structural parts at the beginning of this year, and will also cooperate with Lijin Group to develop a 12000T die-casting unit; while Wencan co., Ltd. applies a super-large integrated aluminum alloy back floor product made of die-casting from a 9000T die-casting machine , also recently completed the trial production.
However, in the short term, the 6000T integrated die casting machine can still meet the mainstream demand.
An Easter egg
As mentioned earlier, Wencan's 9000T super large integrated aluminum alloy back floor products have been successfully trial-produced, but this trial production is in the Tianjin factory, and the same equipment of the Nantong factory will be installed and debugged in May, and the mold will be tested in June.
Who will this new power customer be?
Judging from the customer information disclosed by Wencan Shares, tesla, Weilai, ideal, Xiaopeng, Evergrande and other new forces mostly use their body structural parts. Among this new force, only from the perspective of transportation costs, Tesla, Weilai, and Xiaopeng are more reasonable to supply from the Nantong factory; the ideal Beijing factory is expected to be put into operation in 2023, so is Evergrande really serious about building cars?
Tip: The content of the Easter egg is all speculation, if there is a coincidence, it is purely coincidental.