Giga Presses are the rage with electric vehicle makers. Championed by Tesla, Toyota has now revealed its own version of the monster machine, boasting a reduced production time of minutes instead of hours.
After admiring the Tesla Model Y, calling it a work of art after performing a tear down, Toyota seems to be toeing the path of the American EV company by adopting the same process that produced the EV. The Japanese auto giant has showcased its own Giga Press, with a demonstration at its Myochi plant in Japan.
Toyota’s Giga Press successfully produced a third of the rear of an EV in a single mold from molten aluminum. The single-cast piece represents 83 different parts using Toyota’s current method, using 33 steps. The Giga Press also took only three minutes, a massive upgrade over the usual several hours required for making the different parts and bolting or riveting them together.
Toyota might have been slow to embrace EVs fully, but under a new CEO, the company wants to produce 3.5 million EVs per year by the end of the decade. It also wants to make the EVs efficiently and economically, hence, it is taking a page out of Tesla’s book.
Toyota, however, is not the only major automaker buying into Giga Presses. Hyundai recently revealed its own Hypercast. Volkswagen and Volvo are reportedly working on their own take on the Giga Press.
