Six large-scale, high-pressure die casting machines have been installed at Honda of America’s Anna, Ohio, engine plant, as anchor operations for the automaker’s EV Hub.
A series of six “gigacasting” presses have been installed by Honda of America at the Anna (Ohio) Engine Plant as a core manufacturing element of the EV Hub the automaker will launch later this year.
Announced in late 2022, the Ohio EV Hub includes retooling and new capabilities now projected at $1 billion for the engine plant and nearby Marysville, OH, assembly plant. Honda projects it will have capacity for roughly 220 000 units across all vehicle types at Marysville once the Hub is complete.
Later this year Honda will start assembling the new Acura RSX EV at Marysville, which will be followed by electric vehicles based on prototypes Honda unveiled in January at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show, the Honda 0 SUV and Honda 0 Saloon.
Honda’s goal is for all its products to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2040.
“The Honda EV Hub provides Honda with the flexibility to produce ICE, hybrid-electric, and EV models on the same production lines so we can quickly respond to shifting customer needs and market conditions,” stated Bob Schwyn, senior vice president, Honda Development & Manufacturing of America, LLC. “Beyond adding the capability to produce EVs, we completely reimagined our approach to manufacturing, transforming the Honda production environment with more human-friendly processes and sustainable manufacturing practices.”
The Hub also will include a joint-venture EV battery plant starting up later this year, L-H Battery Co., where Honda and LG Energy Solution have committed to invest $3.5 billion and plan to produce approximately 40 GWh annually.
The EV batteries will be enclosed in high-pressure die cast aluminium cases that will be gigacast on the new, 6 000-ton machines – independently reported and now confirmed to be Carat 610 machines supplied by BühlerPrince – and will be the largest parts Honda has ever produced, it noted. Future Honda EVs are expected to incorporate gigacast front and rear vehicle structures, which is similar to Tesla’s breakthrough use of gigacastings in its electric vehicles.
Gigcasting, or megacasting, are generic terms of high-pressure die casting operations developed to produce large-dimension parts that allow automakers to minimise subassembly for vehicle structures, saving production time and labour costs. Honda suggested that future gigacast parts could include body frames and internal-combustion or hybrid-electric engine components.
As Bühler managing director for die casting, noted: “We have a long history with Honda, and with the Carat 610, we are very pleased to provide the company with a solution to realise their megacasting ambitions. Our Carat series is the most successful solution on the market and is driving forward megacasting production across the world. Together with Honda, we have installed our megacasting solution in Japan. It was the first of its kind in the country.”
The Carat 610 was commissioned by Honda last March in Tochigi, Japan, for research and development, to evaluated different casting conditions and to ensure and improve the finished part quality. “Several parameters such as the casting temperature, the pressure, the casting speed, and the cooling rate can be varied in order to examine their effects on the properties of the parts,” Mendler offered.
The Anna, Ohio, Engine Plant opened in 1985, and in addition to producing Honda engines it casts a range of engine components, and manufactures vehicle transmissions, camshafts, crankshafts, and CVT components. According to Honda, installing the 31-foot tall gigacasters required modifications to the plant, including placing pylons 80 feet below the concrete plant floor to provide a stable foundation.
The aluminium battery cases will be produced in two sizes, for midsize and large EVs – with one-half of the case common to each size. The completed battery cases will be packed with fuel cells produced at L-H Battery as power plants for Honda’s EVs.
