Technology

Great, now we have disposable automobiles.

This article is misleading. If a car crash is bad enough that it damages the frame of a car, it's going to get totalled anyway. So either way it's going to go to a junk yard and get slowly parted out.

Manufacturers are joining the era of disposable cars.

Consumers are joining the era of disposing of cars.

It will reduce costs for toyota.

I doubt the consumers will see any savings.

As mentioned in another thread, there is a paintless dent repair video on YT of a fix done to the corner of a Rivian rear bumper

The owner claimed that he was quoted $41K. To do the work, they would need to cut the body all the way up to the front of the roof

The PDR fix was close to perfect in this case

Impossible seems a bit dramatic. Cost prohibitive is more better

This bit does not ring true:

Such a scenario would be to Toyota's benefit however, as an unrepairable car will still need replacement—potentially with a new car. Repairability is something the automotive industry has directly combated in recent years, with a Toyota-backed industry group sponsoring a scare campaign to (unsuccessfully) undermine a right-to-repair bill. Car companies make their money from selling new cars, not keeping old ones on the road. If cast bodies serve that end better than those stitched together, it'd be no surprise to see them become the industry standard.

Car companies need their cars to hold their value secondhand so that the people who buy their new cars can afford to replace them more often. The right to repair stuff is about forcing people to use their dealerships for repairs.

No idea what Toyota's plan is for body repairs but destroying their second-hand market is probably not a part of it.

Has anyone come up with a guess on the cost of swapping out an entire cast body section vs replacing or refurbishing the parts that would be there without the cast?

If you have a large cast part you could do the same thing as you do with a frame or body panel now. As long as there’s a replacement cast part ready, it is lots of work in some cases, so it’s less “impossible to repair” and more accurately “cost prohibitive to repair”

Article does not have the numbers, and I filled in DDGing the Numbers. How many cars have their frames repaired each year?

My anecdotal experience indicates very few car frames are repaired each year, though not zero.

Toyota has fallen, billions must ride horses

Gigacasting saves car companies money, it doesn't save car owners money. For the manufacturer it reduces their bill of materials and time take to assemble a vehicle. They might save a couple of hundred bucks. Possibly.

For the owner, it increases the risk that a small collision runs a fracture along the body of their car which is then basically impossible to repair and the entire vehicle is a writeoff. Castings could potentially have sacrificial points where some kinds of damage could be ground off and replaced with stamped metal but even if that were so, it's still less repairable than if the entire frame of the car were assembled of stamped metal.

Guess I won't be sticking with Toyota when my Prius finally craps out. Too bad. It's a great car.

this is just more outsourcing the costs onto the public and privatizing the profits for short term gain, they're hoping the entire industry folds in on this but I am absolutely not buying a car where some asshole bumping into my parked car will result in me having to replace the whole front third.

What will EU do?

Coz they gptta do something at some point.

bruh

All according to kaikaku

Good luck getting comprehensive car insurance.