Exhaust System Manufacturing and ABB Welding Robots

Exhaust system manufacturing turns steel tubes, sheet shells and ceramic catalyst bricks into the pipework that quiets an engine and cleans its gases. A typical car exhaust has a manifold, a catalytic converter, one or more mufflers and a tailpipe, nearly all joined by welding. This post covers how mufflers and converters came about, how plants weld them with robots today, including ABB FlexArc cells at a catalytic converter maker in Poland, and what happens to exhaust lines as cars move to batteries, hybrids and hydrogen.

An ABB robot welds a catalytic converter part in a FlexArc cell at Katcon's factory in Poland. Photo: ABB

From noisy engines to the 1975 catalytic converter

Noise was the first problem. Early engines were loud enough that lawmakers stepped in, and on 18 May 1905 Oregon passed a law requiring vehicles to carry a light, a muffler and efficient brakes. Hiram Percy Maxim, best known for the firearm silencer he patented on 30 March 1909, also developed mufflers for internal combustion engines using much the same technology. A muffler sends the gas through a series of passages and chambers, some lined with fibreglass and some tuned so that opposing sound waves cancel each other out.

The muffler of an Isuzu Giga truck, with its tubes running into a stainless shell. Photo: Tennen-Gas / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

For decades these parts were built and fitted largely by hand. Workers cut and bent tube, formed the sheet steel shells and joined the pieces with a torch, and repair shops still weld exhaust pipes that way. Cleaning the gas came later. The French engineer Eugene Houdry, who had invented catalytic cracking for oil refining, started building converters for smokestacks and forklifts after smog research in Los Angeles. In the mid 1950s he began work on converters for cars and received US Patent 2,742,437.

A mechanic works on a car exhaust by hand with a gas torch at a roadside workshop, 2024. Photo: Alfitouri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Engineers in Europe experimented too, and in 1964 Oldřich Jelínek tested an experimental catalytic exhaust silencer at Děčínské strojírny in Czechoslovakia. In 1973 Carl Keith, John Mooney and colleagues at Engelhard created the first production catalytic converter, and Corning researchers invented the cordierite honeycomb substrate that most converters use. Under new EPA rules, most US petrol cars from the 1975 model year carried converters. That also meant unleaded fuel, because lead poisons the catalyst. Volvo introduced the three-way converter on 1977 California cars.

An experimental catalytic exhaust silencer tested by Oldřich Jelínek at Děčínské strojírny, Czechoslovakia, 1964. Photo: Luboš Jelínek / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

How robots weld exhausts today

Exhaust suppliers now sell clean air systems as much as pipes. On 3 September 2026 Tenneco opened its Global Innovation Center in Kunshan, China, which puts more than 200 engineers, more than 30 test benches and certified labs on one site. Tenneco says its Kunshan engineers have filed more than 400 patents. Its teams have worked on technology for hybrid vehicles, China VII commercial vehicle rules and power generation for data centres. "We firmly believe that internal combustion engine technologies will have a long lifecycle," said Nathan Bowen, who leads Tenneco's Clean Air, Powertrain and Spark Plug operations.

Tenneco diesel particulate filter and SCR aftertreatment parts for heavy trucks on display, 2015. Photo: US EPA via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

On the factory floor, ABB has a documented exhaust customer. Katcon, a Mexico-based maker of catalytic converters, commissioned its first six ABB FlexArc welding cells in 2016 for its factory in Warsaw, Poland, and now runs 27 of them. Most use variants of the IRB 2600 robot, and others use the IRB 2600ID, whose integrated dressing routes the welding hoses inside the arm so it can work in tighter spaces. An operator loads parts into a fixture on one side of a positioner while the robot welds on the other side, and the finished parts then come back round to the operator. Metal sheets cover the electrical installations, the wiring runs in steel frames that also keep out welding sparks, and each cell has fume hoods that connect to extraction.

An operator loads parts into a fixture at an ABB FlexArc cell at Katcon in Warsaw. Photo: ABB

Katcon chose the cells for flexibility. Its customers do not guarantee volumes, so it needed cells that can be added or idled quickly. ABB's Robotics Application Centre in the Czech Republic designed a cell that can be copied, and operators can load programs from an existing cell onto a new FlexArc using the same jig design. Each cell can be simulated first in RobotStudio, and positioners like these are programmed as external axes of the robot.

A row of ABB FlexArc welding cells on the factory floor at Katcon in Poland. Photo: ABB

Where exhaust lines go next

Battery cars have no exhaust at all, so every electric model that replaces a combustion car takes a converter and a muffler off the order book, and each lost car programme leaves welding cells that a supplier has to fill with other work. Hybrids still carry a full exhaust, though, and suppliers like Tenneco are developing parts for them. Tighter rules such as China VII and Euro 7 push suppliers toward more sensors and better catalysts. On 14 October 2026 Schaeffler said it had begun mass production of gasoline NOx sensors.

The honeycomb substrate of a catalytic converter at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's emissions research centre. Photo: Oak Ridge National Laboratory / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Trucks, machines and generators will keep exhausts longest, which is why Tenneco points to off-road machinery, long-haul trucks and data centre generator sets. Hydrogen combustion engines are one route for heavy trucks, and DAF showed a hydrogen-powered XF test truck at the IAA show in 2022. Burning hydrogen produces no carbon dioxide at the tailpipe, but it can still form nitrogen oxides, so these engines need aftertreatment as well. For welding plants, that points to fewer car parts and more large, low-volume truck and engine parts.

The DAF XF H2 Innovation test truck, with a hydrogen combustion engine, at the IAA 2022. Photo: MarcelX42 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Exhaust makers face falling volumes in some segments and uncertain ones in others, while each new emissions rule changes the parts. Robot cells that can be copied, reprogrammed and moved between products, as at Katcon, help with that, but a shrinking line still has to earn back what they cost. Plants also need people who can program welding robots and design jigs, skills our post on robotic laser welding touches on. The precious metals inside converters are valuable enough that thieves cut them from parked cars, as reported in Los Angeles in September 2026.

ABB robots weld an exhaust part on a positioner at Katcon. Photo: ABB

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