Sona Dadhania is a senior technology analyst at market researcher IDTechEx. In this guest article she deals with the e-car market and the topic of 3D printers in the e-car industry.
The electric vehicle (EV) market will experience another exciting year of growth in 2023. After a 62% increase in electric car sales in 2022 compared to 2021, IDTechEx predicts a 16% increase in global sales in 2023. However, growth was somewhat slowed during the year by plug-in hybrid (PHEV) development in Europe, particularly in the first half of 2023, partly due to subsidy cuts in Germany. Nonetheless, many agree that electric vehicles represent the future of the automotive industry, especially when it comes to passenger vehicles.
With electric vehicles representing $3.5 trillion in revenue potential by 2044, according to IDTechEx forecasts, it’s no surprise that the additive manufacturing (AM) industry is enthusiastically embracing this application area. After all, even a fraction of the electric vehicle manufacturing supply chain would provide significant revenue and growth to the AM industry. However, this begs the question: Given its unique advantages, what possibilities does 3D printing really offer for electric vehicle production? And where will AM encounter the greatest difficulties?
These questions are discussed for each application in the new IDTechEx report “3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing 2024-2034: Technology and Market Outlook,” which brings together IDTechEx’s unique expertise in 3D printing and electric vehicles. This article takes a look at the opportunities and obstacles that AM presents for electric vehicle production.
AM players see opportunities for AM in EV production:
As discussed in many conversations with key printer manufacturers and materials suppliers in the additive manufacturing space, there are several ways AM can add value to EV manufacturing supply chains, such as: B:
Weight reduction: AM can help reduce the weight of parts, which can increase the range of an electric vehicle and/or free up space for other components (e.g. larger batteries).
Simplifying manufacturing: AM could allow large assemblies to be consolidated into fewer parts, which could lead to a simplified supply chain and cost reductions.
Faster time to market: AM helps shorten design cycles by reducing production times and costs for producing prototypes and tooling. As vehicle design cycles shorten, AM could help bring EVs to market faster through the production of prototypes (both aesthetic and functional) and tooling (for cutting, stamping, molding, casting).
Changes in the existing supply chains of the automotive industry: As old parts are replaced by EV-specific parts (e.g. batteries, electric motors, cooling components, etc.), automakers will build new supply chains to accommodate these new parts. This could leave room for AM to capture market share, especially if manufacturers are willing to consider alternative technologies as they adapt their supply chains.
Flexibility in emerging EV companies: The electric vehicle market is home to numerous start-ups that are more willing to consider alternative production technologies such as AM than the established car manufacturers, creating a new potential customer base for AM. These startups may be more interested in the dynamics of the digital supply chain than the legacy players with their long-standing supply chains. They could also benefit from AM’s flexibility as they don’t need to achieve economies of scale to bring their product to market.
The obstacles to the application of 3D printing in electric vehicles
However, as noted by key end users, AM faces many challenges when applied to electric vehicles, particularly when applied to production components:
High costs for AM: Most 3D printed parts cannot compete in price with traditionally machined, cast, or molded parts. Even for parts whose performance or weight can be improved by AM, if AM results in a larger structure (e.g. through topology optimization) that incurs more cost ( e.g. through post-processing). It will be difficult to find applications where the performance benefits of AM justify the costs, especially considering the need to reduce the cost of EVs to increase mass market adoption.
Limited range of materials and sources: Most AM technologies do not yet process the steel and aluminum alloys commonly used by car manufacturers. Additionally, the individual material sources for AM cause OEMs concerns about supply chain stability.
Bias towards established methods and supply chains, especially at large OEMs: There is a preference for traditional machining and forming processes, especially among larger OEMs like GM. There are also long-established supply chains that AM has to compete with. Because OEMs can be risk-averse, it is difficult to adopt new manufacturing technologies such as AM.
The production throughput is too low for the mass market: AM has lower throughput than established manufacturing processes, making it difficult to achieve mass production of electric vehicles.
Lack of need for performance improvements: For many mass-market parts, current solutions are good enough that there is no need for OEMs to adopt AM, even if AM improves performance.
Lack of reliability: Since OEMs are quite risk-averse, AM needs to prove its quality and durability to be adopted for the mass EV market.
AM on the rise in electric vehicle production?
Despite these challenges, the AM industry is making progress in penetrating the electric car market. One of the biggest events of 2023 in the 3D printing industry was Tesla’s push into “gigacasting,” a process in which massive casting machines are used to produce large individual parts for the underbody of electric cars. A key component of this process is sand binder jetting to produce casting cores.
As other automakers such as Toyota consider integrating gigacasting into their own supply chains, this new application represents the future potential of 3D printing to have a significant impact on the electric vehicle market.