In the fiercely competitive environment, being able to reduce costs is undoubtedly a significant advantage. Improving processes is a common way to achieve this, especially in the increasingly competitive automobile manufacturing industry, where each company has its own forging process.
On Tuesday, Nissan officially announced its collaboration with Tesla. They will use Tesla's pioneering gigapress forging process to produce some of their electric vehicles. This came after Nissan announced plans to increase its sales volume by one million vehicles within three years and to launch a total of 30 new models, including 16 electric vehicles.
The gigapress forging process, innovated by Tesla, is a method of forging the chassis of a car. Unlike traditional forging methods that assemble dozens of separate parts through welding, gigapress forging uses an enlarged machine to complete the forging in one step, saving time, equipment, and other costs. This process has been adopted by Tesla for its own cars, and Toyota, another Japanese manufacturer, has also committed to using this technology.
According to Nissan, they will use a press weighing approximately 6,000 tons to manufacture the rear floor of upcoming electric vehicles. Adopting the gigapress forging process will reduce the cost of this process by about 10%, which is part of Nissan's strategic plan. They aim to equalize the costs of electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles by the 2030 fiscal year.
Currently, Japanese car manufacturers are striving to catch up with Tesla and several Chinese automotive giants. While they have previously dominated the internal combustion engine car market, they do not want to miss out on the burgeoning electric vehicle market. However, overcoming the barriers to entering the electric vehicle market is challenging. Therefore, they are choosing to collaborate with established electric vehicle companies like Tesla to quickly penetrate the market.
