Frame Construction

Podcast Episode: 0175
Why are we changing the way we build cars again?

    ​    The construction of our vehicle has changed over the years but why are we  changing it again?  AutoLooks takes a look at back at the evolution of frame construction in the automotive world to see where we came from to get to our new method of construction.

    Evolution takes its toll on everything.  From ships to people, we have all evolved over time and its that evolution which keeps moving us forward.  In the automobile industry the evolution of the construction of our vehicles has changed many times and is changing yet again with Giga Casting.  But why do we need to change again, as uni-body and monocoque construction seem to be working fine?

    As with all things we need to evolve in order to get better and that is what Giga-Casting is doing for the construction of our vehicles.  This evolution is just what we require in order for the automobile industry to keep moving, as its cost savings will help bring people back to car ownership.

    
    From our start with individual carriage works to the uni-body construction we are seeing today, this evolution has made vehicle ownership within our grasp.   Carriage works made it very expensive as their limited mobility took longer to build.  With the introduction of the moving assembly line, we decreased the time it took to build vehicles and open up the world to the personal mobility unit.

    Out body-on-frame layout worked for a long time, until we realized that we could reduce the weight of the vehicle with a more rigid single form construction.  The uni-body helped us speed up the process yet again but now we were stamping more parts which took more space.  Giga-casting is the next part of our evolution into building vehicles, bringing down the number of parts and time which goes into building vehicles.  ​

    Today as we look toward our future of automobile construction, we see that vehicles in the future may be easier to form, but this too could pose new problems.  Weight savings has been our overall goal with vehicle construction and it seems we have not hit the end of how we can change this process.  So, follow AutoLooks as we take a look at the history of how our vehicles have been built, to see where we are headed.

Everett J.
​#autolooks