Volvo is preparing the Torslanda factory in Sweden for EV production
- Volvo is investing $ 1.1 billion in the factory in Torslanda, Sweden, ahead of plans to offer an electric car range by 2030.
- The car manufacturer will use a mega-casting process in aluminum, which will create large single mounting parts instead of using many smaller ones, which reduces the complexity and lowers the overall weight of the vehicle.
- Volvo has recently chosen Gothenburg, Sweden, as the location for a battery gig factory that will collaborate with battery specialist Northvolt.
Volvo’s factory in Torslanda is the car manufacturer’s oldest assembly plant still in use, in operation since 1964, but it is by no means obsolete. Just last year, the factory achieved climate-neutral status as part of Volvo’s plans to make all its factories climate-neutral by 2025.
The car manufacturer is now investing around 1 billion euros to make Torslanda ready for electric car production, as Volvo is planning its transition to an electric car series in just eight years.
This week, Volvo revealed that they will introduce several new processes at Torslanda to take the step to a future for all-EV, just a few days after they announced a new gig factory to be built with battery specialist Northvolt in Gothenburg.
A new major manufacturing process that Volvo will introduce at the Torslanda factory is mega-casting of aluminum body parts – to create larger parts of the floor structure from a single piece of aluminum. This process reduces the total vehicle weight, complexity and production’s overall environmental footprint, with a single part that can replace dozens of individually manufactured and joined parts. It will also significantly reduce the time it takes to manufacture an important vehicle component.
The odds are that if you’ve heard of megacasting, it’s thanks to Tesla. The company popularized the process, which is now seen as an important milestone in the manufacture of vehicle components, with the Italian press manufacturer Idra Group who created the machines. Two of its presses weigh 5,500 and 6,200 tons, respectively.
When robots apply a layer of oil to allow separation of the finished piece, most of the air is removed from the closed mold. Then molten aluminum heated to 1400 ° F is pumped from an oven into the closed chamber. When the casting has cooled to a certain temperature, but far from cold, the mold is opened and the casting is removed by robots who place it in a hardening tank to quickly cool it, and then clean it and inspect the casting for defects.
The process sound straight to the point, although the technology and scope are quite large, where each press has the same footprint as a small house. Each cycle only takes about two minutes, which means that each press can create hundreds of castings a day.
“The introduction of mega-casting of aluminum body parts for the next generation of Volvo electric models is the most significant and exciting change implemented as part of the investment package,” adds the car manufacturer, while noting that the start of mega-casting at Torslanda is still subject to the necessary environmental permits are obtained. “Mega-casting creates a number of benefits in terms of durability, cost and car performance over the life of the car, and Volvo Cars is one of the first car manufacturers to invest in this process.”
Volvo plans to upgrade Torslanda’s paint shop and use a new battery assembly system on site to integrate battery cells and modules into the vehicle’s floor structure. The car manufacturer plans to renovate the plant’s logistics area to optimize material flow and delivery of parts.
“Our future as a company is fully electric and it requires a variety of upgrades throughout the factory, to ensure that Torslanda can continue to build premium electric cars of the highest quality,” says Javier Varela, Head of Technology and Operations at Volvo Cars.
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