It says there will be a rapid reduction in EV manufacturing costs as big makers shifting to so-called “gigacasting” or “megacasting” which will simplify manufacturing and take out many of the costs as it requires fewer parts and dramatically less welding.
Tesla has been using gigacasting as a manufacturing method for its Model Y SUV since 2020. The Financial Times reported that founder Elon Musk first had the idea after looking at his child’s die-cast toy cars - and wondering why that could not be replicated for the real thing.
Traditionally, the main body of a car has been made by welding or stamping together a large number of separate parts. Gigacasting or megacasting, on the other hand, uses casting machines to force molten metal into moulds under high pressure to produce large aluminium body parts, such as the entire underside of a vehicle.
“Gigacastings heavily reduce the time and cost to build the vehicle floor pan by going from 171 different parts to just two and by eliminating 1600 welds,” Gartner said in its latest Top Automotive Trends report.
Gartner says Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and other major car makers are retooling to take advantage of gigacasting.
Among other benefits, heavy battery cases can be dispensed with as cells are incorporated into the all-in-one floor pan. And the battery array being part of the structure yields a major reduction in costs.
Meanwhile, gigacasting pioneer Tesla is promising an EV that will sell from just US$25,000 ($40,200), with its launch penciled-in for 2026.
Higher repair, insurance costs
The flipside is that EV owners will have to “wrestle with higher repair and associated insurance costs”, Garner says.
An electric vehicle is already costlier to repair than a petrol car, Gartner says.
“By 2027, the average cost of an EV body and battery serious accident repair will increase by 30 per cent,” Gartner says.
“Gigacastings are big casted floor pan parts that reduce the time needed to produce the whole vehicle floor pan by reducing the number of parts. If a crash damages the gigacasting, this will mean replacing it entirely, and that will be costly.
“A crashed vehicle can no longer be repaired by stretching the chassis back to its original form.”
The rise of AI could be another insurance hassle
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and smart use of data will be one of the biggest trends of the next few years, Garner says.
By 2030, it forecasts the average automaker will use AI in 80 per cent of its high-value processes, up from 20 per cent today.
Americans are already seeing the impact of high-tech driver-monitoring systems many of which have been pioneered in EVs, even if they’re not exclusive to electric vehicles.
The New York Times reported this week on the case of a US driver who had seen his insurance company raise his premiums by 21 per cent, even though he had not been in a crash.
After querying the rise, he discovered that his Chevy Bolt electric vehicle’s maker - General Motors - had shared stats collected by his car’s intelligent systems, such as when he braked too hard or accelerated too quickly. A data broker, LexisNexis, then sold that data to his insurance company.
GM said customers could opt-out of the feature - which was pitched as facilitating “more personalised” insurance that could also lead to lower premiums.
“Especially troubling is that some drivers with vehicles made by GM say they were tracked even when they did not turn on the feature - called OnStar Smart Driver - and that their insurance rates went up as a result,” the Times reported.
EVs’ smart systems are shaping up as another area that politicians and regulators - already struggling to keep pace with AI - will have to keep an eye on.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
