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Time: 2026-03-24
Form: Industry News
With its advantages of high energy density, small deformation, narrow heat-affected zone, high welding speed, easy automation, and no post-welding processing, laser welding has become one of the important technologies in industrial manufacturing. The automotive manufacturing industry is currently the largest-scale user of laser welding technology in industrial production. The flexibility of laser welding machines meets the processing requirements of various automotive materials, reduces production costs, improves efficiency, and brings significant economic benefits to the automotive manufacturing sector. Laser welding technology is mainly used in automotive body-in-white roof laser automatic welding, multi-gear laser welding, airbag igniter laser welding, sensor laser welding, battery valve laser welding, etc., as detailed below:
Application Areas of Laser Welding Technology in the Automotive Manufacturing Industry
In the automotive industry, laser welding is usually applied to key stations of body welding and parts with special process requirements. For example:
Different laser welding methods are often adopted for welding various body parts. Several common laser welding methods in the automotive industry are listed below.
Laser brazing is mostly used for joining the roof and side frames, as well as for trunk lids and other components. This welding method is widely adopted by Volkswagen, Audi, Peugeot, Ford, Fiat, Cadillac and other automakers.
Figure 2 Application of Laser Brazing in the Automotive Industry
Laser autogenous welding is a type of deep penetration welding, mainly used for roof panels, side frames, car doors, etc. At present, many models from Volkswagen, Ford, GM, Volvo and other automakers are manufactured using laser autogenous welding. The specific processing parts are as follows:
Figure 3 Application of Laser Autogenous Welding in the Automotive Industry
Remote laser welding uses robots combined with galvanometer scanners to realize remote beam positioning and welding. Its advantage lies in significantly shorter positioning time and higher efficiency compared with traditional laser processing. At present, it has been gradually promoted in Europe and the United States.
Figure 4 Application of Remote Laser Welding in the Automotive Industry
Non-contact ProcessingThe most important advantage of laser welding in automotive manufacturing is its advanced non-contact processing method. Traditional processing methods such as screw fastening and adhesive bonding cannot meet the requirements for precision and robustness in modern automobile manufacturing. Moreover, the application of new materials has also revealed disadvantages of traditional methods.Laser welding is non-contact, enabling precise welding without touching the product during processing. It has achieved a leap-forward improvement in terms of connection strength, seamlessness, precision and cleanliness.
Promoting Automotive LightweightBy adopting laser welding, more stamping parts can be used instead of castings in automobile manufacturing, and continuous laser welds can replace discrete spot welds. This reduces the overlapping width and some reinforcing components, decreases the volume of the body structure, and thus reduces the vehicle weight to meet the requirements of energy conservation and emission reduction.
Improving Body Assembly Accuracy and StiffnessA car body and chassis consist of hundreds or even thousands of parts. How to join them directly affects the overall body stiffness. Laser welding can join almost all metal materials with different thicknesses, grades, types and levels.It greatly improves welding accuracy and body assembly accuracy, and increases body stiffness by more than 30%, thus enhancing vehicle safety.
Enhancing Process Stability via Laser Hybrid WeldingCompared with pure laser welding, laser hybrid welding can greatly improve the gap-bridging ability of sheet metal parts. This allows manufacturers to fully utilize the process stability of arc welding during high-speed laser welding.
In addition, laser welding can reduce stamping and assembly costs in automobile body manufacturing, shorten the production cycle, reduce the number of parts, and improve the integration of the vehicle body.Laser-welded parts show almost no deformation at the welding zone, with high welding speed and no need for post-weld heat treatment. At present, laser-welded components are widely used, such as transmission gears, valve tappets, door hinges, etc.
Since 2011, the development of China's automotive industry has shifted from rapid growth to steady growth.In 2018, China's automotive industry maintained stable overall operation. Affected by policies and macroeconomics, production and sales were lower than expected at the beginning of the year. The annual production and sales reached 27.81 million units and 28.08 million units respectively.
In 2019, automobile production and sales reached 25.721 million units and 25.769 million units, down 7.5% and 8.2% year-on-year. China ranked first in the world in terms of production and sales for 11 consecutive years.
As a major country in the automotive industry, China's steady transformation and upgrading of the automotive industry have greatly promoted the application of advanced laser welding equipment in the sector.
Figure 5 Production and Sales of Automobiles in China from 2014 to 2019
In 2019, during the transformation and upgrading of China’s automobile industry, the sector was under considerable pressure due to factors such as Sino-US economic and trade frictions, the switch of environmental protection standards, and the reduction of new energy subsidies.Over the year, manufacturers took the initiative to adjust and respond positively, showing strong self-recovery ability in the second half of the year, and the industry generally remained within a reasonable range.In this huge market, consumers can notice many international automobile brands and vehicle enterprises, but the development of complete vehicles is fundamentally supported by the development of auto parts enterprises.At present, the scale of China’s auto parts industry ranks among the top in the world. Among them, auto parts enterprises with foreign investment background occupy the medium and high-end market, while domestic-funded parts enterprises mainly occupy the low-end market.
Due to the weak technological R&D capabilities of domestic auto parts enterprises, it is difficult to support the technological upgrading and innovation of complete vehicles. Therefore, domestic vehicle enterprises and upstream parts suppliers are bound to carry out the transformation and upgrading of equipment, technology and processes, and achieve in-depth cooperation between vehicle and parts enterprises.This will greatly promote the application of laser welding, laser cutting and other equipment in the automobile manufacturing industry.
Against the background of the steady development of China’s automobile industry, with the demand for automotive lightweight, the breakthrough of domestic laser welding technology and the increase of application penetration rate, the application prospect of laser welding equipment in the automobile industry is broad in the future, as detailed below:
Automotive lightweight has made laser welding technology increasingly valued and widely applied.The Action Plan for Promoting the Development of Automotive Power Battery Industry mentioned the need to develop automotive lightweight technology. The first phase was from 2016 to 2020, focusing on the development of ultra-high-strength steel and advanced high-strength steel technologies, including material performance development, lightweight design methods, forming technology, welding technology and testing and evaluation methods.High-quality and high-efficiency key laser welding processes and complete sets of equipment are important technical guarantees for achieving automotive lightweight, high safety, and flexible and efficient production.Compared with traditional resistance welding in the manufacturing process, laser welding can not only reduce the volume of body structural parts, reduce vehicle weight and fuel consumption, but also reduce processes and production material loss and improve production efficiency.
Domestic automotive welding technology has achieved breakthroughs, breaking the international monopoly.In recent years, more and more domestic automobile enterprises have adopted automatic welding production lines, but this market was basically monopolized by ABB, KUKA and COMAU. Domestic enterprises lacked corresponding discourse power in the cooperation process, so their enthusiasm for adopting laser welding was weak.In 2016, the project Key High-Quality and High-Efficiency Laser Welding and Cutting Processes and Complete Equipment in Automobile Manufacturing, independently developed by Huagong Laser together with Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Shenlong, GM and many other downstream vehicle enterprises, won the First Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award.It realized the localization of key laser welding and cutting processes and complete equipment in the field of automobile manufacturing, breaking the 40-year foreign monopoly in this field, marking a major breakthrough of China’s advanced laser manufacturing technology in automobile manufacturing.In the future, with further breakthroughs in domestic laser welding technology, the application of laser welding technology in China’s automobile manufacturing field will be more extensive.
There is huge room for improvement in the penetration rate of laser welding in China’s automobile industry.Germans first applied laser welding technology to automobiles. In the mid-1990s, BMW completed the first weld seam of the BMW 5 Series sedan using laser welding robots, with a total weld length of 12 meters.Subsequently, roofs of Audi, Sagitar, Golf, Passat and other brands adopted laser welding technology, and GM, Toyota, Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other companies adopted laser welding technology one after another.At present, the application rate of laser welding in China’s automobile industry is about 20%–25%, while the popularization rate in developed countries in Europe and the United States has reached more than 60%.It is expected that the domestic application rate of laser welding will reach the same level as foreign countries in the next decade. The future revenue space of laser welding equipment is considerable, and the application of laser welding machines in China’s automobile industry has huge room for improvement.
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