Explosive growth in electric vehicle market: Five "Golden Opportunities" for Established Manufacturers

High-performance battery module forming

The battery system is the "heart" that powers electric vehicles with continuous energy. With the surge in battery demand, the market demand for key plastic components that ensure cell integrity, safety, and superior performance is also rising. These components mainly include:

For established manufacturers entering the electric vehicle sector, one of the key challenges is developing specialized skills to properly process highly corrosive and temperature-sensitive materials. Unlike traditional automotive forming which emphasizes wear resistance, electric vehicle battery components require both robustness and extreme precision. This demands high requirements for unique processing settings, temperature, pressure, and speed.

Integration of smart components and sensors

Similar to smartphones, electric vehicles are gradually "evolving" into intelligent machines that require the integration of complex electronic devices, which redefine the user experience by enhancing connectivity, communication, and control functions. This "iteration" indeed brings an increased demand for precision-molded components that support these intelligent systems.

These precision components require special materials to protect delicate and fragile electronic devices while providing adequate sealing and thermal management. Achieving perfection in this regard depends on the ability to achieve optical clarity and dimensional stability. For molding manufacturers with experience in consumer electronics or medical device injection molding, this is akin to having a "halo effect," granting them a natural advantage.

Extended-Range Electric Vehicle Lightweighting Solutions

At present, range anxiety remains a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. "Lightweighting," which involves reducing the amount of material used in the entire vehicle, has become a key strategy to improve the range of electric vehicles without needing to increase battery capacity, allowing the vehicle to "extend range without adding weight."

For manufacturers, this presents an excellent opportunity to develop thin-walled components that maintain structural integrity while being as lightweight as possible. The key challenge lies in how to create structurally precise components with appropriate wall thickness through complex injection molding processes, achieving the right balance between material reduction and performance requirements.

As OEMs go to great lengths to increase range, manufacturers skilled in mastering these lightweight technologies will become highly sought-after and valuable within the entire electric vehicle supply chain. To achieve lightweighting in the electric vehicle market, it is recommended to consider the following factors:

The production of electric vehicle components demands much higher material requirements than traditional fuel vehicles. The transition to electric vehicles will inevitably give rise to unique material challenges, and traditional automotive manufacturers may not yet be prepared to tackle these issues. From the corrosive properties of certain compounds to the stringent protection required for sensitive components, the production of parts in the electric vehicle sector relies heavily on material expertise.

For manufacturers entering the electric vehicle supply chain, mastering the processing technology of engineering-grade polymers undoubtedly offers a highly valuable competitive advantage. This advantage becomes even more apparent as the complexity of components continues to increase with each new generation of vehicles.

The complexity of these materials poses severe challenges in process control. When processing engineering-grade polymers, molders must ensure consistent part quality, even if the material faces degradation risks due to high temperatures or prolonged processing times.

Nowadays, as the electric vehicle market continues to expand, established manufacturers must meet the growing demand while ensuring that safety-critical components meet ideal quality standards. Leading automotive OEMs are increasingly favoring partners that can simultaneously meet the demands for "high volume, high quality" manufacturing, driving the production model towards advanced process control and real-time quality monitoring.

With real-time monitoring and automated process adjustments, molding manufacturers will gain a competitive advantage, providing electric vehicle manufacturers with the scale, efficiency, and precision they need.