They must anneal them

Also when people hear "cast" they think "cast iron" or cheap appliance broken piece (mostly zinc). They're brittle because of material choice, not because of casting. (Though casting does influence the choice of materials)

Ruger, for example, makes everything from gun barrels to golf clubs from casting.

They claim that due to material advances and such, casting can meet or exceed the strength of typical 'forged' steel.

Not necessarily. Tesla actually developed a proprietary alloy for their giga casting that removed the need for heat treatment, as the large castings tended to deform during it. On the plus side, also meant they could remove that process step. Article didn't give any details how Toyota would handle it though.

Indeed, when I heard about the gigapress, I was like that is pretty neat, but when I read it was just casting, and not forging, I was like oh, it's not the *best* solution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forging

I assumed that the gigapress was a large stamping die. neither casting (melt the metal and pour it into a mold) or forging (shaping softened hot metal), but deforming cold metal in one or more steps using alot of pressure and a very hard mold.

Yes, but that's the way it is with Musk. Nothing is actually what it claims to be.

They literally call them castings and have done so since the first time Tesla talked about them. And its still a 'press' its just a casting press not a stamping press. Is complaining about literally everything Musk related now just the default even when it doesn't make even the slightest amount of sense?

So it's your contention that Idra Group came up with the term / misnomer Giga Press and not Tesla / Musk?

No its most like Tesla/Musk that came up with the term. But it is in fact a press and its a bad name, hence Idra also calling it that.

No need to speculate.

Model Y has been using casting for a few years now.

It's also among the safest cars in a crash: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/956/tesla-model-y-receives...

In this particular test it was THE safest cars ever tested by Australian ANCAP.

Crash safety is unrelated to the problem with "gigacasting", which is that "a huge cast part is almost impossible to repair whereas the traditional folds of stamped metal can be fixed using traditional methods".

https://www.thedrive.com/news/tesla-gigacasting-a-cars-entir...

Not all metals. The stronger aluminum alloys get their strength from precipitation aging, which gives a lot of similar benefits to forging (via different processes), and because of that cannot be forged very much. They do get stronger when forged, but only slightly, and they break apart if you form them too much.

Cast iron is already used in transmission cases etc, and it does indeed shatter. But it's not because its cast (although it can't be forged even a little; it breaks apart almost like sand), it's because it's actually just a name for an alloy. It's very high carbon (>1%) steel, which makes it very brittle but also very easy to cast. You can cast aluminum or low carbon steel and it will not be brittle at all, particularly if you let it cool slowly.