Last year, Volkswagen made a real splash when they announced they were ready to move towards mass production with HP MJF technology. Anyway, HP’s announcements are always a real splash for the industry.
This time, we are talking about a production run of more than 10,000 high quality parts produced by HP and GKN Powder Metallurgy. Both partners only had a couple of weeks to prepare the ID.3 electric vehicle launch event of Volkswagen. And that’s how they achieved a key milestone in the first step of its three-phase strategic roadmap to functional production.
“What better way to showcase the innovation of Volkswagen than to use our own technologies in the marketing campaign for the premiere ID.3 launch,” said Dr. Goede. “We are extremely pleased with the technical features and the speed, quality and low-cost per part that HP Metal Jet has provided. The surface quality and feature resolution enabled great attention to detail and made it possible to add a special touch to this important company milestone.”
As part of the next stages, the automotive specialist will integrate Metal Jet printed structural parts into the next generation of vehicles as quickly as possible and will target a continuous increase inpart size and technical requirements – with the future goal of soccer-size parts of 50.000 to 100.000 per year.
Other higher performance functional parts with significant structural requirements include gearshift knobs and mirror mounts. As new platforms such as electric vehicles enter mass production, HP Metal Jet might serve for additional applications like the lightweighting of fully safety-certified metal parts.
“A digital transformation in the auto industry is underway and Volkswagen is leading the way with strategic vision and bold action,” said Tim Weber, Global Head of Metals, HP 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing. “We are committed to delivering the capabilities our customers need to accelerate the design and production of high quality final parts with breakthrough economics. Together with Volkswagen and partners like GKN we are standing up the factories of the future.”
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