Question for Dr. Allis

I agree, they're putting substantial resources into making a machined crank from rolled alloy, but the fact that it's rolled alloy, means it's not 'billet'.

If it's rolled 4340 Cromoly, it's not 'billet'... it's an alloyed, rolled steel bar.  Billet is what you get when you melt brake drums and virgin iron, and instead of pouring it into an ingot, or a bloom, or a slab, you pour it into a trough that's about 4" square and 12ft long.    Once this has been done, it's sent on to be hot-rolled into soft products, like rebar, or if it's a sheet or foil mill, roof flashing, electrical conduit, and other non-structural applications.

Calling finished parts 'billet' is the same as extracting water from whole milk, chilling the gooey stuff that remains, and calling it 'ice cream'.

Modern CNC has made it much less expensive to make low production and one-off specialty parts, and the proliferation of consistent, high quality carbide, with flood coolant, in-place measurement, and other really great advances make it so that subtractive machining processes (both cutting, and abrasive) can work well on materials that wouldn't be economically workable just a decade-and-a-half ago.  It used to be, that the best process available, was to use high-force press forging on carefully-brewed alloys at precise temperatures... and when doing large volume, it's still impossible to beat the cost of good foundry work... but a forging of ANY type is extremely expensive for the first one... the only cost break comes when you run thousands and tens-of-thousands.