Tesla pioneered megacasting, a technique that uses giant casting machines to make car bodies with just a few massive cast parts (a Matchbox car is said to have provided the inspiration), and other automakers quickly took notice. In 2021, the LK Group reported that it would supply giant casting presses to several Chinese companies. In October of this year, Reuters reported that Italian firm Idra, which supplies Giga Presses to Tesla, had delivered machines to Ford and Hyundai.
Now Idra tells us that Volvo Cars has ordered two 9,000-tonne Giga Presses (each the size of a small house) for its new car plant in Kosice, Slovakia. Volvo’s Kosice plant is slated to go online in 2026 with an annual capacity of 250,000 EVs.
Volvo Cars has yet to confirm which models it will build in Slovakia, but we do know that the plant will use the new Scalable Product Architecture 2, an EV-specific platform. The Volvo electric XC90 and Polestar 3 will use the SPA2 platform, so Electrive surmises that European production of these two models will be in Slovakia.
