Volvo to invest £800m to upgrade Torslanda plant for EVs

“What we are looking into as a starting point is to cast the rear floor, where we replace 100 parts with one. That has some obvious benefits such as reduced manufacturing complexity.

“What I think is really exciting is the design flexibility you get. It will allow for something completely new where you can optimise the product for every vehicle or every segment in a way that you cannot do with a traditional platform where you have predefined scaling of how you should make it longer, higher and so on.  

“It's a huge flexibility and that’s especially important now as we’re going into electrification and we should expect some technological steps to take place. It’s good to have an architecture where you can adapt.” 

How does this help to reduce Volvo’s environmental footprint? 

“That is super-important for us. Looking at the material, if we take a steel floor and compare that with a mega-cast aluminium floor, we see that we can reduce the CO2 emissions by roughly 35%.

“There are some things you need to think about. First, we want to have as much secondary aluminium as possible. We are targeting 50%. We are also looking into alloys with up to 100% recycled aluminium but they are still not up to the standards we are setting out. Secondary aluminium is important. 

“We’re also only sourcing primary aluminium from suppliers that can provide low-CO2 aluminium and we have signed up to do that. Basically, that means aluminium with less than four kilos of CO2 per kilo of aluminium. 

“Then when you come into the production facility, you also have almost 100% material utilisation - the material you bring in will be transformed with parts without scrap and everything you cut off will be put back into the furnace. That’s very different from steel when you have around 45% scrap that you have to remelt and so on. 

“Finally, at the end of the vehicle’s life, this big chunk of aluminium is a great asset and something you can bring back again in another loop to reuse that material.”

When can we expect this process to begin?

“Mega-casting will be introduced with our fully electric platform and it will be put into production in the middle of the decade.” 

How do these parts affect the performance and drive of a car? 

“I don’t think you would see much of a difference - it would reduce the weight a bit. When it comes to stiffness, we’re fulfilling the requirement we have so it would be the same if it was steel.”

How about the efficiency of your electric models?

“In production you would get an increase in efficiency, but more importantly what we have seen is that when you cast a structure you can sculpt tighter around your wheels, suspension, powertrain and the seats compared with steel. 

"By going tighter, you can, for instance, lower the seat by around 15mm. You can lower the roofline, and then you reduce the complete cross-section of the car. That has a big influence on the range and that is more significant than what you get from the weight reduction.” 

What are the first models we can expect to be manufactured this way?

"The model has not been presented externally yet - the only thing we can say is that it’s coming with this new electric platform around 2025."

Does the battery plant support the construction of the batteries themselves? 

"This mega-casting has an interface with the battery. The rear part of the battery is attached to this floor, but otherwise there is no connection right now."

Are there any significant monetary savings to be made using mega-casting? 

"I would say so, yes. The investment to start up this kind of production is a heavy investment, but the good thing is that when you have your second generation with a new floorline, that is totally taken away.