Hexagon Places Bet on Next-Level Manufacturing for Sustainable Automotive Design

When it comes to the automotive sector, innovating emissions systems and to a lesser degree, lightweighting, has been the most common way to drive more sustainable car designs.

Manufacturing giant Hexagon AB is taking a different approach, placing its bets on the vehicle production process as a means to promote a greener environment. The company recently announced a $100 million investment in Divergent Technologies Inc., which has introduced a ground-breaking digital factory solution for complex structures that the firm touts as a replacement method for traditional vehicle manufacturing.

The Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS) is a modular digital factory solution that aims to transform auto manufacturing economics and environmental impact. The fully-integrated software and hardware solution and patented process combines AI-optimized generative design software, 3D printing, and automated assembly to build lightweight automotive parts and frames.

DAPS takes a data-driven approach to designing and building vehicle structures with the goal of minimizing material usage and reducing total system cost. Based on a set of digital requirements as input, the design software optimizes the weight, strength and cost of vehicle models, and parts are 3D printed and assembled autonomously, reducing manufacturing time and the need for human intervention.

The system essentially delivers a tool-free approach to car making, leveraging the same hardware infrastructure to enable quick design iterations or seamless switches between different car models without downtime. Divergent officials tout DAPS’ design-agnostic process as less energy- and resource-intensive, delivering more efficient structures faster. The process can also promote weight reductions on vehicles of between 20% to 70%, officials claimed, leading to improvements in vehicle efficiency.

Lukas Czinger, senior vice president of operations at Divergent and co-founder of Czinger Automotive (Divergent’s sister company), said the novel approach was designed to create more efficient vehicle structures in less time while also transforming the CapEx business model of traditional manufacturing.

Hexagon sees power in Divergent’s novel approach for creating a more sustainable automotive industry and is committed to investing in disruptive technologies that advance smart manufacturing concepts across the board.

“Manufacturing a car’s parts has a much greater impact on the environment than the car’s exhaust emissions, which is why new manufacturing concepts will win,” said Hexagon President and CEO Ola Rollén in remarks announcing the investment. “We must find ways to empower car makers with more efficient and environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes that minimize material usage and total system cost. Incremental steps are simply not enough to save the planet.”

Divergent’s Czinger said the Hexagon investment will help the firm accelerate plans to build a global network of DAPS factories, each serving multiple OEM clients. While initially focused on the automotive sector, Divergent’s proprietary end-to-end DAPS solution could be applied to any complex, structure-based discrete manufacturing process, officials said.

DAPS is the foundational production platform used by Czinger to manufacture the 21C hypercar and the platform used to 3D print the aluminium rear subframe of the DBR22, a V12 engine, two-seater vehicle built by Aston Martin.

Watch this video to hear Divergent 3D CTO Michael Kenworthy talk about how DAPS works.