Wencan delivered the third set of molds for the Aito M9

The Wencan Foundry Research Institute delivered the third set of molds which will be used on a 9,000 and a 10,000 tons die casting machines supplied by LK Machinery and Idra. The machines are located inside Seres’ super factory and are used to make the Aito M9 rear underbody Gigacastings. Wencan itself is the operator of the machines and supplier of the castings to Seres.

The new molds incorporate advanced temperature and displacement control, aimed at ensuring high-quality castings. The molds are massive, with the moving part weighing 91 tons and the fixed part 65 tons. These molds are expected to last 80,000 shots. According to Foshan News.

The Aito brand was born as a joint venture between the notorious Chinese tech king, Huawei and the automotive manufacturer Seres. Later Seres acquired the full control of the brand, all the patents and the factory.

The Aito M9 uses rear underbody gigacastings plus other 9 castings which lower the number of parts by 212 and the number of welds by 1,440 which is a reduction of 90% and 70% respectively. The ten die casted parts also contribute to increasing torsional stiffness by 23%.

YIZUMI has Launched its New 2 Platen Series of Die Casting Machines

During the introduction of the NEXT² series, Yizumi presented a 4,400 tons two-platen die casting machine, the first of its kind for Yizumi. You can see it in the image below.

Right now Yizumi hasn't released an official catalogue but it's very likely that 4,400 tons won't be the clamping force limit of the NEXT² series. Yizumi might use the 2 platen architecture to increase its offer of die casting machines which also includes the LEAP series. The LEAP series includes 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 and 9,000 ton three-platen die casting machines but in the future the NEXT² series might exceed 10,000 tons... who knows...

"What sets NEXT² apart is its integration of proprietary technologies, including the RAPTOR multi-cylinder locking unit, the user-friendly Dolphin control system, and the high-speed Yi-Cast injection unit.

With up to 50% energy savings, thanks to the LEAP servo + feeding pump station combined with the precise Yi-Cast system, NEXT² delivers exceptional productivity while minimizing floor space and material costs." - Diecasting Engineering

Metal Without Mining…

Alex Grant, CEO of Magrathea, was interviewed at the Italian Tech Week 2024, here is the transcript of the interview. He was part of the mobility panel and I removed the other two interviewees.

Interviewer: Please introduce yourself, the vision for your company and why you decided to start

Alex: Hi everyone, I'm Alex, co-founder and CEO at Magrathea. We're a tech company in California developing a new generation of electrolytic technology for making magnesium metal from sea water. With the potential to make inherently carbon neutral primary light metal for the body parts of cars.

Interviewer: Metals without mining is a great tagline. How exactly do you produce metal from seawater? It sounds crazy.

Alex: It's a good question, and frankly, there's an explanation that might actually just be crazy. So, historically, a plurality, the majority of the magnesium metal ever made was actually made from seawater in places like the US, Norway, and Israel. We realized that there was a technology stack there that could be redeveloped and improved, sometimes radically, to reduce cost to make light metal very cheap without mining in the supply chain because fundamentally, the metal is being made from sea water or salty water. It was a realization that offered a step change in decarbonization and sustainability value proposition that no existing mining or minerals or metals company was even capable of offering. So, we took that technology stack and went back to first principles and fundamentals of physical chemistry and figured out much better ways to make magnesium via electrolysis. Two years later, we have a bunch of patents, we've built a two-ton-per-day pilot in California that's now making metal from seawater. It's been a heck of a lot of work doing pretty hardcore chemical engineering, learning from advisers who've operated in the industry, and really kind of smooshing together the mistakes that everyone else has made historically with new ideas that reduce cost.

Interviewer: Alex, how do your customers think about the trade-off between decarbonization and onshoring critical materials?

Alex: That's a good question. So, just to provide a layer of context there, magnesium metal is one of the most important materials for national security and for the economy. You can't make steel without magnesium for desulfurization, you can't make any aluminum alloy without magnesium. So, you lose your aluminum industry, you lose your steel industry, you lose titanium, you lose a whole bunch of other materials that are dependent on magnesium. And now as we've entered a kind of decade of great power conflict, it's a bit of an issue that China, Russia and Iran control more than 90% of the world's magnesium supply and all of NATO has zero production now of primary metal. So that looms really large in the minds of our customers. But the reason why they're going to engage with us so early, we've only really been doing any business development for like 18 months, is because we're offering to sort of simultaneously clean up the supply base of this material and decarbonize it while we're at it while we bring it back to North America and Europe. So, we found that customers really see it go hand in hand. We need to really reindustrialize rapidly, considering the moment we're in, and while we're doing it, we really ought to clean up the process simultaneously. So, very much not in conflict, very complimentary (trade-off between decarbonization and onshoring).

Interviewer: And you're partnered with the US Department of Defense. What is that like?

Alex: So, we formed a $28 million Defense Production Act Title III partnership with the Department of Defense. Magrathea has been gifted with probably the most US taxpayer dollars in a generation or two to work on magnesium metal production, which we're super honored to have. It's been an incredible blessing. The DoD has been one of the most incredible partners, just behind Exor, I have to say. They just, the connectivity that they offer is incredible. They can really tell us kind of what matters for the US and Europe's defense industrial base very clearly. And our customers are also connected into that network, so the DoD offers this really interesting opportunity to connect with customers because they see it as validation that the federal government has invested in Magrathea. It's been really phenomenal, they've been extraordinarily helpful. Just like the last thing I would say is like, everybody kind of actually wants us to do the same thing, which is to build a company that generates earnings and makes metal. Simply put, the DoD wants that, investors want that, customers want that. So, there's been almost no misaligned incentives between these different stakeholders and different backers, which has been pretty extraordinary. So yeah, really phenomenal partnership so far.

Interviewer: Alex, you sold metal from your first pilot plant. Who did you sell it to, and how, what are the keys to building a new metal? It seems hard.

Alex: So that's a good question. We built a 2 ton per year name plate pilot in California making metal from sea water and brine. Just a sliver of that metal, a couple kilograms, someone wanted badly enough US-made clean electrolytic magnesium that they would give us money for it. We weren't even planning or trying to sell metal at this stage; it's just total R&D experimental small scale. But because we are a company, of course, we took their money and gave them metal. It was actually an isotopes facility that needed magnesium for kind of an energy-critical application. And it was really important to them that they had a domestic supply of the metal. They didn't want to have to rely on China and Russia for this particular application. So yeah, we consider that really a strong validation of the fact that people need and want this material. And as far as I know, they paid the highest price ever for magnesium, which is quite entertaining for me, on the millions of dollars per ton scale for a very small amount obviously. We're pretty proud of that, and we'll continue building the relationship with that customer, and it's just the start.

Interviewer: Do you see magnesium as disrupting the traditional auto supply chain?

Alex: Yeah, first thing first is to reinforce and make more robust the existing supply chain. There's magnesium in every single car on the road in the aluminum alloys and die castings, sometimes in extrusions, and different types of parts. So, plan A is to make sure that that supply chain is clean, robust, and secure. But long term, because magnesium is the lightest structural metal, it's a third lighter than aluminum and four times lighter than steel. Different automakers have looked at using a lot more of it in cars for decades. We've received quite a lot of positive feedback that because batteries have essentially made cars so heavy, now it's kind of the moment when magnesium needs to be invested in and considered deeply for the next generation of EVs. Because dead weight never makes your car more efficient; it only reduces your battery's capabilities and how far you can drive, etc. So yeah, we're really excited to offer that as a lever that wasn't really considered before.

Interviewer: I have a question for all of you. What advice do you have for aspiring founders building in mobility?

Alex: I was just going to say Focus. So many people try to go after so many different products and markets because they think of themselves as a technology platform and they can tackle all these different problems. But then they end up trying to deal with like 17 different Industries and they can't actually build trust with any customer in any industry because they are spread too thin and resources are spread too thin internally too. That's shaped so much our approach at Magrathea, it's just focus focus focus on delivering exactly the product that matters the most to the first customers so yeah, Focus.

Interviewer: What has been the single biggest challenge for each of you as you've built your startup?

Alex: The biggest challenge was explaining to people what the heck we're doing essentially, and why it matters and who's going to buy this metal. That's been mostly put on the shelf successfully over the last year and a half. We have almost a quarter of the entire world's non-China magnesium market under LOI and MOU now, and partnerships with automakers and stuff. So that was kind of out of the way but then, as we've scaled a bit, we're about 30 people. One of the biggest challenges is the team, and I think that will be my life forever from now on: just making people work together effectively, creating environments of trust, and finding the right people. Because we're building smelters with 700 degrees Celsius molten salt, and no one knows how to do that, you really have to find the right profile of person who wants to learn quickly and has kind of relevant experience that they can deploy in an environment like that. So yeah, building and bolstering the team is a huge challenge but really a lot of fun too.

Source: Italian Tech Week 2024

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