Did we see the Peak in Automotive Production?

If you run a high-pressure die casting foundry, the automotive industry is probably your core market. Roughly 80% of HPDC output goes into vehicles, so your utilization and profitability are tied directly to vehicle volumes. That is why you should ask a hard question: have we already passed the peak of automotive-driven casting demand?

Europe has already dropped in Volume

In Europe, vehicle production peaked around 2017–2018 at roughly 19.0–19.3 million cars and has not returned to that level. Today, it is still around 15 million.

At the same time, European cars got significantly more expensive, and the core reason is simple. When volumes fall but fixed costs remain unchanged due to no layoffs, unit costs rise. A very concrete example is an Audi plant I grew up next to, about 260,000 cars per year, roughly ten years ago, and today about 130,000 cars. At the same time, the workforce is still around 15,000 people, so the overhead you can spread across units basically got cut in half.

And on the customer side, the affordability gap is becoming brutal. A mainstream benchmark, like a Volkswagen Golf starting around €40,000, is way out of the league for many buyers.

Even in a very optimistic affordability model (20% down, 36 months, 8% of gross income, no interest, and ignoring insurance/maintenance), the safe new-car budget lands around $23,350 (~€19,820) for a median-income household. So you are not in the €40,000€ segment at all.

For you as a foundry, this matters because fewer vehicles produced in Europe means fewer castings, especially in the traditional high-volume programs that historically kept many die casters stable.

Less Complexity and fewer Castings

Even if global car production does not collapse, the EV transition changes the casting equation. EVs have fewer systems and components than ICE vehicles, reducing the number of cast parts needed per vehicle. An ICE vehicle uses around 2,000–2,500 parts in its drivetrain, while an EV is often quoted at roughly 400–700 parts, depending on the source and architecture.

And the KPI you should track is not aluminium per car. It is shots per car, because you do not sell aluminium, you sell machine capacity.

Let’s assume an ICE vehicle requires 100 HPDC castings, and an EV requires 50. With global production rising from 94 million cars in 2025 to 104 million in 2030, but EV share increasing from ~25% to ~85%, the math moves hard against foundries. Average shots per vehicle drop from 87.5 in 2025 (0.75×100 + 0.25×50) to 57.5 in 2030 (0.15×100 + 0.85×50). That takes the industry from roughly 8.2 billion shots/year in 2025 (94M×87.5) down to about 6.0 billion shots/year in 2030 (104M×57.5).

That is a decline of around 26–27%, even though total car production increases. In a tougher scenario with 100M cars in 2030 and a wider ICE/EV gap, the decline reaches roughly mid-30%.

That is exactly why the situation intensifies for foundries. Your operating cost per cell is relatively stable, so losing a quarter to a third of shots is not a rounding error; it is a structural capacity and margin problem.

The Conclusion is straightforward

If your business is built around automotive volume, you are exposed on two fronts:

1. Europe is losing volume, partly because prices have risen beyond what many buyers can afford.
2. EVs reduce casting demand per vehicle, leading to fewer shots and a higher utilization risk.

So yes, there is a very realistic argument that we already saw the peak of easy automotive-driven growth for HPDC.

If you want to stay in business, you need to develop new business deliberately. That means building a pipeline beyond classic automotive commodity parts and going where your next customers actually are, especially in non-automotive industries where performance and margin matter more than pure Volume.

Waiting for RFQs in portals is not business development. You need focus, upstream engagement, and active outreach and marketing to replace shrinking automotive Volume with profitable work.

Schedule your Free Consultation Call below this article to learn more about what Rheocasting can do for your foundry and how the Rheocasting Expert on Demand is the perfect service to get new non-automotive products.