“Generally described, vehicles are often assembled and manufactured in a specific sequence by building the welded frame, or ‘box,’ of the vehicle first (e.g., a vehicle body). Traditional vehicle manufacturing utilizes welding of stamped panels to construct the vehicle body. The body or ‘box’ is then transported through an e-coat system to provide a corrosion-resistance coating, and then is painted.

“The painted body is then moved to a ‘General Assembly’ (also referred to herein as GA) shop, where internal and external components of the vehicle are assembled (e.g., instrument panels, seats, doors, trims, and so on). This traditional assembly process drives inefficiency in material handling and transport as the entire weight/footprint of the vehicle must be transported in order to assemble even small components (e.g., headlamps, thermal bars, wheels, and so on). The process also limits the ability to automate many of the manufacturing steps, as it becomes difficult/expensive to datum/locate the assembly at the full vehicle level.

“An aspect of this disclosure relates to a vehicle architecture that reduces the need to weld stamped panels. In some embodiments, no welding is used to connect major portions of the vehicle. Additionally, the vehicle architecture may avoid secondary decorating (e.g., coating/painting) at the full vehicle assembly level. In certain embodiments, the vehicle is designed such that it can be built in sections or modules and joined in a final assembly operation.

“In certain embodiments, this assembly operation can be accomplished after welding operations and metal surface treatment operations (e.g., e-coat, paint, and so on) have been applied, eliminating the need for traditional full-body-scale body and paint shops in automotive manufacturing. In some embodiments, the assembly operation can include, for example, a bolting or riveting operation. In some embodiments, the assembly operation can include a stir welding operation. In some embodiments, the sections can utilize large-scale castings or smaller stamped and welded assemblies.

“Another aspect of the disclosure is that the modular vehicle architecture can include assembling the body or ‘box’ of the vehicle after the internal components have been assembled to individual sections or modules of the vehicle. This allows the length of the GA line to be reduced. In various embodiments, by ‘unboxing’ the assembly processes, individual sub-lines can also be reduced and/or run in parallel to one another, which may improve speed.”