Flexible Production Concept of a Low-Cost Battery Pack Housing for Electric Vehicles

Abstract Fixture and clamping technologies of automated production lines for structural components in vehicles turned out as the main cost driver with up to 29 % of total investment costs of the production equipment. Additionally, they limit the product flexibility for product variants and change requests during the product development process. Flexible production concepts, like jigless joining with component-integrated jig features (CJF) might be a promising approach to reduce component specific jig technology. Technical as well as economical aspects are investigated on a low-cost battery pack housing for electric vehicles and are compared to conventional concepts concerning annual production volumes.