Hyundai-Kia files trademark for Hypercasting - Korea alternative to Tesla's Gigacasting

The Hyundai Motor Group has recently submitted to the Korean intellectual property protection office a trademark registration for the term ‘Hypercasting,’ for use by both its namesake Hyundai brand as well as Kia.

The trademark was submitted under the category of light metal fabrication, metal heat treatment, metal casting, and pressure casting.

As its name implies, Hypercasting refers to Korea’s interpretation of the aluminum die-casting technology used to make vehicle body, popularized by Tesla. With die-casting, the conventional method of spot welding multiple stamped metals to create a car body is now replaced with just two or three pressed aluminum structures glued together.

Since it requires significantly less steps, die-casting has been credited as one of the main reasons why Tesla can build car bodies at a much lower cost than traditional car companies. However, the technology didn’t originate from Tesla’s famed Gigacasting machines, but Italy’s manufacturing tools IDRA’s Giga Press, which supplies the machines to Tesla.

Quoting industry sources, some Korean news outlets say that Hyundai’s Hypercasting technology is now in demonstration phase and will be installed at the company’s Ulsan plant in 2026.

Hypercasting will be at the core of the company’s E-Forest ‘intelligent factory’ future. Earlier in April, ‘Meta Factory’ and ‘Meta Studio’ were also trademarked at the Korean Intellectual Property Office.

Using die-casting technology is not without its controversies. BMW for example, has been cautious about it.

While reducing components count / manufacturing steps is great, reducing the vehicle structure to just two or three giant parts creates secondary concerns regarding collision repair cost, or inability to accommodate design change / improvement fast.

There’s also a correlation between high collision repair costs for Tesla and Gigacasting. In China, Tesla owners must pay higher insurance premiums. In the US, many mildly damaged Teslas are written off by insurers because it’s just too expensive to repair its body. Others flat out reject applications to insure a Tesla.

But with the new generation of car buyers treating their EVs like smartphones, meaning cheap-to-buy is far more important than ease of repair or product longevity, it is inevitable that more manufacturers will have to consider die-casting’s upfront cost savings to their customers, even if it means raising accident repair costs.

As buying habits of EVs merge with that of smartphones, manufacturers will have to change their business model to one that’s closer to smartphones – shorter ownership cycles, low purchase price with many subscriptions-based optional ad-ons, costly repairs be damned because it’s cheaper to buy a new one, and easily disposing the product. So much for saving the environment huh?

Even Toyota has said that it will adopt die-casting method in 2026. Volvo is another new joiner.