Toyota’s New 3D Printed Tool for Its Yaris Hybrid Could Reshape How Cars Are Made

In the relentless race to make cars more efficiently, every component counts. Toyota is now targeting a crucial manufacturing step, using advanced 3D printing to create massive die-casting tools. The project aims to slash production times and costs, potentially changing a key part of how vehicles are made.

Although the large die-casting tool inlay developed jointly by Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, MacLean-Fogg, and Toyota has not yet been deployed in routine production manufacturing, it’s a promising demonstration of something the AM industry has long been touting — the fact that 3D printing can quickly produce custom molds with efficiency-boosting conformal cooling channels that are not manufacturable any other way.

The project proved, according to Fraunhofer, the scalability and feasibility of a large insert built additively with the new L-40 tool steel and a large-format laser powder bed fusion system. Toyota is already using smaller mold tools in series production and found found that they provide a significantly longer service life than traditionally manufactured tools.

This die-casting tool inlay, designed for the transmission housing of the Toyota Yaris Hybrid, incorporates conformal cooling channels that  closely follow the complex contours of a die cavity rather than running in straight lines as with traditional drilled channels. In an aluminum housing die casting tool, they provide more uniform and efficient heat extraction across the cavity surface, which shortens cycle times by enabling faster and more consistent solidification. This reduces the likelihood of hot spots, porosity, and distortion, leading to improved casting quality, while also extending die life by minimizing thermal fatigue.

After the mold insert was built, it was stress relief annealed, and its functional surfaces were milled conventionally. The high dimensional accuracy of the additive base body only required precise final finishing without additional material input.

At the core of the development is a new tool steel called L-40, created by MacLean-Fogg specifically for additive manufacturing. The material has a much lower tendency to crack during both printing and post-processing and exhibits strong mechanical properties, including high hardness, tensile strength, and impact resistance.