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Weekly Gigacasting News 33
16/6/2025 - 29/6/2025. Wencan new Gigacasting factory. Magrathea hires former Apple director as new COO and plans $100 million partnership. Xiaomi YU7 and land purchase. Chery new rear Gigacasting. FAW delivers magnesium thixomolded battery case to customer.
Luca Greco
June 29, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
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Wencan New Facility Could Become The World’s Largest Gigacasting Factory
On June 18, 2025, Anhui Hongbang Die Casting, a subsidiary of Wencan Group, celebrated its commissioning ceremony in Lu'an, Anhui Province. This event marks the completion of Wencan Group's advanced Central China production base, strengthening its ability to supply OEMs across multiple regions in China.
Covering 135,000 square meters, with 116,000 square meters dedicated to production, Anhui Hongbang is Wencan’s largest single factory. It has the capacity to house up to 28 large die casting machines, 250 machining centers supported by 200 robots, and 50 automated production lines, establishing it as the group’s most advanced and automated smart factory.
The factory leverages a comprehensive digital ecosystem that seamlessly integrates supply chain management, casting, precision machining, and quality control. This approach maximizes automation, minimizes labor and costs, and enhances product quality.
An advanced AI vision system, powered by deep learning, revolutionizes product inspections. It replaces manual visual checks with high-precision scans that capture intricate surface details for superior accuracy.
Intelligent, unmanned AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles) with sensor-driven navigation streamline logistics. These vehicles optimize material, equipment, and product transportation across stations through automated, precise path planning.
Wencan has further strengthened its cutting-edge facility with a newly installed 10,000 ton die casting machine, boosting production capacity for its customers like Nio, AITO and Li Auto.
Machine: IDRA XPress 9800 - Gigacasting: AITO M8 RUB (I reckon)
About Wencan
Wencan Group, a pioneer in automotive Gigacasting, operates 12 die casting islands above 6,000 tons, including seven 10,000 ton units, with plans for three more this year. Supplying over 1 million Gigacastings annually to clients like NIO, SERES and Li Auto.
Magrathea in Discussion For $100 Million Partnership. Meanwhile Former Apple Director Joined The Company.
According to Axios, Magrathea, a green magnesium startup, is in discussion with companies to create a $100 million partnership that will fund and guide a commercial scale demonstration plant.
Alex Grant, CEO of Magrathea, told Axios that either an investment, a joint development agreement, licensing or an outright acquisition of Magrathea are all options for the partnership.
The company plans to use this partnership with defense, chemical or mining firma to support the development of a $50 million production facility that will be able to produce 1,200 tons of magnesium per year.
Former Apple director joins Magrathea in the role of COO.
Michael Vyvoda will bring to Magrathea more than two decades of leadership across global operations, technology development, and scale up execution at high growth startups and industry giants alike.
Previously, he oversaw global operations for Apple, steering a five fold increase in AirPods production, expanding capacity across Asia, and saving hundreds of millions of dollars through strategic cost reduction initiatives.
Michael’s experience in engineering, technology, and full-scale manufacturing is a valuable asset we’re excited to have in-house.
Magrathea is scaling up to satisfy the immense demand for secure primary metal, and we look forward to leveraging the expertise of a COO on our bench with a proven track record helping innovative technology companies build.
In his role as COO, Vyvoda will build out the organization over the coming months in service of delivering the company’s demonstration facility.
Construction of the demonstration facility will begin in 2026 and production of metal at scale will begin in 2027.
In addition to his time at Apple, Vyvoda’s background includes senior roles at other hardware and semiconductor companies, including Thinfilm Electronics, Twin Creeks Technologies, and SanDisk.
Joining Magrathea is a rare opportunity to help build something truly foundational - clean, secure ex-China metal production.
From semiconductors and solar to electronics and large capital equipment, I’ve seen how manufacturing excellence shapes industries and geopolitics. I’m thrilled to bring that experience to a company tackling one of the most important challenges of our time
About Magrathea
Magrathea is a technology company based in California developing a new generation of electrolytic process for making carbon neutral metal from seawater and brines.
Recently the company launched its magnesium chloride electrolyzer.
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Xiaomi Update
Xiaomi officially launched the New YU7 full electric SUV, the company’s second vehicle and a direct competitor to China’s top selling Tesla Model Y.
During the reveal, Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s CEO openly showcased an in depth comparison between the two SUVs, highlighting their rivalry.
The YU7 is built on the same Modena platform as Xiaomi’s SU7 and features a rear underbody (RUB) Gigacasting, just like the Model Y, manufactured in house using Xiaomi’s proprietary Titan aluminum alloy.
This technology, also used in the SU7, delivers significant benefits, including:
Elimination of 72 stamped parts and 840 welds, 17% weight reduction, 2 dB noise reduction and vehicle life exceeding 2,000,000 km. But most importantly, the single piece RUB casting helps the vehicle delivering exceptional structural strength and withstanding rear collisions at speeds of up to 90 km/h.
To support the YU7 production, Xiaomi installed two new 9,100 ton die casting machines from Haitian. The entire production island has been designed by Xiaomi in house.
Xiaomi is forging ahead with ambitious plans. On June 19, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning announced that Xiaomi secured an industrial land parcel in Beijing for approximately 635 million yuan ($88.6 million).
According to the official "Listing and Transfer Announcement," the 485,100 square meter site is designated for the development of new energy intelligent connected vehicles and component manufacturing facilities.
It remains unclear whether this expansion will boost production capacity for the SU7/YU7 lineup or support a new model, such as the rumored hybrid or “extended range” (EREV) large crossover recently spotted in China.
Xiaomi EREV
Production Begins for Chery’s New Rear Gigacastings
Chery Automobile recently achieved a milestone with the successful trial production of the E08 model's rear underbody Gigacasting, manufactured using an 8,800 ton die casting machine.
The integrated rear floor was produced at Millison Technology's Chongqing factory, utilizing an Haitian 8,800 ton die casting island.
The new E08 in an electric and hybrid MPV which will be launched in the second half of 2025 under the Exeed brand. It was presented at the Guangzhou Motor Show a few months ago.
The rear Gigacasting design aligns with the trend of excluding large, thin, and complex wheel arches.
This approach simplifies the casting process by optimizing molten metal flow within the die, improving part cooling, reducing weight, and minimizing storage and shipping space requirements.
However, this design requires adding wheel arches in a separate process, which reduces efficiency in terms of part count reduction, body-in-white (BIW) shop size optimization and ultimately costs.
Additionally, the design features a large, flat floor section, which could offset the weight and complexity benefits of excluding the wheel arches. This flat section likely serves as a cover for the vehicle’s battery management system but is probably a stamped component produced in a distinct process.
Further analysis is challenging due to the limited publicly available images at this time.
Millison Technology is an experienced company in Gigacasting production.
The company has previously supplied rear underbody castings for the NIO ES8 and contributed to numerous projects, including the development of the world's largest magnesium die casting components for R&D purposes.
FAW Group Successfully Delivers Magnesium Alloy Thixomolded Battery End Plate Sample
FAW Group has delivered a magnesium alloy Thixomolded battery end plate sample to a client. The sample was produced using a dual cavity mold, enabling a single injection to yield two components simultaneously.
The mold features a multi directional core pulling structure, allowing full lateral core pulling molding for all holes. This design eliminates additional machining steps, reducing manufacturing costs by 20%.
The component's strength is 10% higher than that achieved with traditional processes, due to the lower air and shrinkage porosity obtained by Thixomolding.
FAW estimates a single machine can produce up to 2,400 units daily. The battery end plate has an area of just a few centimeters.
About FAW Forging and Casting
Over the past two years, FAW has heavily invested in developing high strength, corrosion resistant magnesium alloys.
The company is also advancing magnesium processing equipment for a 10,000 ton die casting machine in order to produce magnesium underbody Gigacastings for electric vehicles.
These magnesium Gigacastings are projected to be over 30% lighter than their aluminum counterparts, offering significant weight savings for EV applications.
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