The federal and Ontario governments need to offer incentives to attract new vehicle assembly plants to Canada, Linamar Corp. president Linda Hasenfratz says.

“A vehicle assembly plant is huge. The payback is immense,” Ms. Hasenfratz, chief executive officer of Canada’s second-largest auto parts maker, said Tuesday.

Mexico and other countries are offering incentives so “why are we so against it?” she asked.

Her comments come amid growing evidence that Canada’s position in the North American auto industry is eroding as the United States and Mexico grab a much greater share of investment in assembly plants, the country’s automotive trade deficit soars, and employment levels stagnate.

Manufacturing is a critical element of a prosperous economy, Ms. Hasenfratz told the Bloomberg Canada economic summit in Toronto, pointing to Germany as a country that has high labour costs, but also a thriving auto industry and is among the world leaders in innovation.

Canada’s share of new automotive investment in North America has fallen to single digits from at least 15 per cent annually, according to data from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. and the Center for Automotive Research, an industry think tank in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The recovery in North America following the 2008-2009 financial crisis is different because it’s the first time in living memory that Canada has underperformed compared with the United States and Mexico, Mr. DesRosiers told the meeting.

“If you don’t invest, you don’t get the future,” Mr. DesRosiers said, saying it’s easy to place the blame for lack of investment on the rise in the value of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. currency, or on the Canadian Auto Workers for rejecting concessions made by the United Auto Workers at Detroit Three auto plants in the United States.

But the reasons are deeper than that, he noted, including the aggressive incentives being offered by U.S. states and Mexico.

Trade agreements Mexico has signed with several South American countries have led to billions of dollars worth of new investment and helped boost Mexico to fourth among countries that export vehicles, says a recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Board of Chicago.

The debate about Canada’s status in the North American auto industry is occurring as the federal and Ontario governments consider a request by Ford Motor Co. for financial help to rebuild the auto maker’s Oakville, Ont., vehicle assembly plant.

Ford has been seeking a contribution of more than $400-million to help cover an investment of about $1.2-billion to install an assembly line that would produce a global platform – or basic vehicle chassis – that can support vehicles that could be exported around the world.

The auto maker is confident it can retain its Canadian footprint, Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. president Dianne Craig told the meeting.

The Oakville plant is the only remaining Ford assembly plant in Canada.

Progress is being made in negotiations with the governments, Ms. Craig said after the meeting, but she refused to provide a deadline for an answer to Ford’s request.

U.S. industry sources said Tuesday that the governments will need to move quickly, because the vehicles that will be produced on Ford’s CD4 platform, which include replacements for the current Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, are scheduled to hit the market for the 2015 model year.

Start of production for those vehicles is scheduled for next June, the sources said.

• LNR-T
• F-N
• FPRA-N

More Discussion on LNR-T

More Discussion on F-N

More Discussion on FPRA-N

Article source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/auto-industry-makes-the-case-for-incentives/article12048491/?cmpid=rss1

In BE’s e-mail newsletter (May 14th) reporting about the SRAM ‘Urban Days’ event in Schweinfurt, the header BMW: ‘Bike Industry Has To Learn Quickly’ caught my attention

(click here for that story)

I may have misunderstood the details of the message by Mr. Augustin E-Mobility manager at BMW, because BE’s report was very short and compact, just an attempt to summarise the spirit of what Mr. Augustin was saying.

However, based on what I read, I do think that Mr. Augustin is missing some key points:

• Yes it is true that compared to automotive industry, the bicycle industry is very poor and very low tech, and most of our electric 2-wheelers were not based on knowledge and competence from within our industry. Remember Panasonic, Yamaha and Sanyo were the founding fathers of the electric bicycle.
• However, the automotive industry has a very, very bad track record when it comes to adequately understanding designing and engineering bicycles, not to mention super lightweight, compact, single person electric 2-wheeled vehicles (LEV’s).
• The automotive industry may consider their market understanding, their design and engineering capability superior to that in low-tech bicycle industry. To some point that is indeed true, however they seem to forget the automotive pitfall! The dynamic interaction between bicycle and rider (man/machine) quite often is being misunderstood underestimated by automotive engineers. The bicycle is a completely different load case than a car, a motorcycle or a scooter. Automotive vehicles have a drivetrain with relatively low torques and a high RPM’s. The bicycle drivetrain has opposite requirements: high rider’s torque with almost zero RPM. There is only 1 HP (horse power) available, therefore efficiency is crucial for propulsion. And there is the delicate balance between weight structure of vehicle and rider. The vehicle’s weight is only 25% of carried rider’s weight.
• In the case of LEV’s these points are even more relevant. How to create the best synergy between vehicle and rider, between man/machine? WITHOUT compromising weight, compactness, manoeuvrability and footprint of the vehicle! WITH understanding future societal mobility trends and consumer (= rider) needs! At this point I am not reassured that the automotive industry better understands the future societal trends and future consumer trends when it comes to personal and micro mobility.
• Let me put things in perspective:
• 75% of all people in the modern world live in cities urban environments.
• 75% of all their traffic movements is within a short range of 0 ~ 10 km.
• 75% of all those traffic movements is being made individually.
• For almost 50% of all traffic movements in the modern world the car is the least suitable mobility vehicle!
• “First Mile Last Mile” mobility (integration with public transport systems) is becoming increasingly important.
• Will this mobility in the near future be consumed with much more compact, yet relatively heavy 4-wheeled electric platforms? The Renault Twizzy still weighs 475 kgs, with a 100 kgs battery pack.
• Will this mobility in the near future be consumed with even more compact 3-wheeled electric platforms? The beautiful Toyota iROAD weighs 300 kgs, with a 50 kgs battery pack.
• Will this mobility in the near future be consumed with heavy 2-wheeled electric platforms? E-scooters still weigh 70 to 85 kgs, with battery packs that weigh in at 12 to 15 kgs.
• I think that genuine LEV 2-wheeled vehicles will serve a substantial part of our future mobility and they have different specs:
• Super lightweight, 30 kg.
• With 2.5 kg. battery pack and a range of 30 to 50 km.
• Super compact, 1 m2?
• Super flexible, portable and offering ‘Door-to-Door’ mobility?
• Super manoeuvrable, with a radius of orbit of 1 m.?
• What more proof do we need?
• Car sales in Europe in 2012 were 40% less than before the financial crisis!
• Gas powered 2-wheeler sales in Europe very soon will completely disappear (except for  some niche, high-end power sports motorcycles).
• European bicycle sales also have started an irreversible downward trend!
• Yet people / consumers continue to consume more mobility than ever, and this societal consumer trend will further grow!
• Mid to long term: in my view the loss of car sales, gas powered motor cycle sales and bicycle sales will be compensated by sales of LEV’s (Pedelecs, Speed Pedelecs, slow E-bikes, E-bikes, slow E-Scooters and E-Scooters).

I agree with Mr. Augustin: bicycles won’t take over! Yes, that is correct. Nevertheless, the void will be filled with electric 2-wheelers. Probably not with the 2-wheelers which the automotive industry has in mind, but with genuine LEV’s.

Han Goes
Qsquare consultants
Shift micro mobility

Article source: http://www.bike-eu.com/Sales-Trends/Market-Report/2013/5/Car-Industrys-Bad-Track-Record-on-Electric-Vehicles-1260354W/

Washington — One of the longest serving auto industry lobbyists said late Tuesday he will retire early next year.

Mike Stanton, president and CEO of the Association of Global Automakers, the trade association representing primarily Asian and luxury automakers, disclosed his decision at a meeting Tuesday. Stanton, who will be 69 when he retires, plans to spend more time with family and friends.

Stanton has spent over 35 years representing motor vehicle manufacturers before Congress, the White House and state legislatures. He announced the move to give his members enough time to find a replacement.

“It’s bittersweet because I clearly love the industry and all of the issues, but it’s time for the next generation,” Stanton said in an interview.

“Mike has done an impressive job invigorating Global Automakers, delivering growth and developing a clear and progressive vision,” said John Krafcik, president and chief executive officer of Hyundai Motor America and Global Automakers’ chairman of the board.

“I have enjoyed working with Mike in a period of great progress for the association and hope to find a new president and CEO who can continue to lead the organization on the path that has been set.”

Stanton has been involved in every major auto regulatory issue over the last three decades. He has often joked that long-running battles over fuel efficiency standards helped him put his children through college.

The group’s members include American Honda Motor Co., Aston Martin, Ferrari North America Inc., Hyundai, Isuzu Motors America Inc., Kia Motors America Inc., Maserati North America Inc., McLaren Automotive Ltd., Nissan North America Inc., Peugeot Motors of America, Subaru of America, Suzuki Motor of America Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp.

Global Automakers will retain an executive search firm and establishing a search committee composed of member automakers to help find the organization’s next chief.

The Association of Global Automakers represents international motor vehicle manufacturers, original equipment suppliers and other automotive-related trade associations.

Stanton is a native Washingtonian and holds a bachelor’s degree from Wheeling Jesuit University and a master’s degree from George Washington University. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy and was a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War.

Stanton was also a longtime lobbyist for Detroit’s Big Three automakers. He served as vice president, government and international affairs, at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the trade group that represents Detroit’s Big Three automakers. Previously he was director of government affairs for the American Automobile Manufacturers Association following 11 years with the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association, where he was responsible for federal and state issues.

Article source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130521/AUTO01/305210403/1121/auto01/Longtime-auto-industry-lobbyist-will-retire

“Only the paranoid survive”

– Former Intel CEO Andy Grove

Things seem so good in the enterprise technology universe right now it is a little scary. The IT transition to cloud/mobile/social has entrepreneurs and investors salivating, with three significant forces at work:

• Real, not PowerPoint, multi-billion dollar opportunities are emerging for new entrants
• IT buyers have new productivity options for workers and better values for their operating and capital spending
•  Incumbents are getting needed wake up calls on their technologies and business models.

So why am I nervous?

The Detroit Syndrome

Forty years ago, the Middle East oil embargo ripped a hole the size of a Buick through the American automotive industry. Over the following decades, the Big 3 automakers suffered huge market share losses, two major bankruptcies and government bailouts. Smaller, cheaper and more fuel-efficient cars from Japan broke the Detroit oligopoly and proved not everyone wanted big, powerful sedans, powered by a Detroit’s V8s.

As David Halberstam documented in The Reckoning, hubris and management blindness led to an enormous transfer of value from American to international car manufacturers. In 2012, the American auto industry had a $140 billion trade deficit. That’s like Apple losing everything.

Tech Drives Today’s Economy

Today, tech is a huge growth driver of the U.S. economy. Millions of jobs – not just in Silicon Valley but across the U.S. – directly depend on it. And that’s just the beginning: Enrico Moretti of UC Berkeley estimates that 1 job in traditional manufacturing generates 1.6 additional jobs, but one job in tech generates closer to 5 incremental jobs.

But the last heyday of enterprise IT crested around 2000, as “CIO as rock star” gave way to “CIO as cost center.” IT spending in the developed world has been basically flat ever since.

5 Challenges For Enterprise Technology

And now, enterprise technology faces an incredibly complex series of challenges and opportunities:

1. Customer Collaboration is Reducing Switching Costs. The IT industry has long relied on vendor-led standards bodies (IETF, IEEE) to ensure interoperability, but the dramatic growth of customer-led collaborative efforts in the open source and cloud movements is reworking the playing field. Rackspace-led OpenStack and Facebook-led Open Compute initiatives are cookbooks for the commoditization of IT infrastructure. If low-cost producers take over the infrastructure business, they will likely come from offshore producers (China, India, etc.) and not U.S. manufacturers. And don’t forget GitHub if you are in the software business.

2. The Cloud and the Rental Economy. The tremendous cost, energy, speed and operational savings presented by Cloud and SaaS technologies are changing how we think about IT. Why buy from HP or Oracle when you can rent from Amazon or Workday? Why let capacity sit idle when you can pay for it as you need it? This is a good thing, as resources will be used more efficiently. But it poses challenges for enterprise tech vendors. “We are one or two amortization cycles away” from the coming drop-off of premise-based IT purchases, warns Lightspeed Ventures’ Tim Danford.

3. BYOD and BYOA. The verdict is in: IT managers are coping, sometimes kicking and screaming, with the influx of customer-purchased devices as corporate computing platforms (Bring Your Own Device). The next wave of mobile challenges will come from BYOA (Bring Your Own Applications), where applications like Evernote and Box replace popular Microsoft programs like Sharepoint or even the Office suite. The classic enterprise software license could be a few apps away from oblivion.

4. The Lean Vendor. User-led IT communities like Spiceworks are replacing how buyers learn about products and services. Tech marketing is becoming a content and education task, not a promotional activity. This is giving the high-touch (read high cost) sales and marketing models of traditional vendors a run for the money. Companies like Ubiquiti Networks are not only taking advantage of this new buying behavior, they are passing on their own lowered selling, general and administrative (SGA) costs to customers in the form of great technology and user-friendly innovation at lower prices. As a CIO friend of mine once told me: “When you walk into a vendor’s offices and they’re nicer than your own, remember you paid for it.”

5. Distributed Computing Model. Current computing models are built around a central premise: a client (e.g., Microsoft) will talk to a server (x86, IBM) in a single location to process an application. If you own either end of the equation, you can exact enormous value. But the cloud architecture is massively distributed, apps might have to touch dozens of places to process everything, totally disrupting that vendorscape. More significantly, the new in-demand IT skills sets look less like a traditional Fortune 500 corporation and more like Google or Facebook. Distributed computing scientists are this generation’s Einsteins.

3 Ways To Save Enterprise Tech

In Silicon Valley, it’s easy to assume the next generation of giants will grow just down the street. But the rest of the world is working to take advantage of the same trends while eyeing the large and relatively wide-open U.S. market.

I for one do not want to wake up in a decade and buy a book charting the downfall of the American technology industry by the next David Halberstam. Here’s what has to happen for the enterprise technology industry to avoid The Detroit Syndrome:

1. Incumbents need to blow up their own business models before challengers do it for them. The first wave of Detroit’s reaction to the initial oil-shock resulted in half-baked responses like the Ford Pinto, Chevy Vega and AMC Gremlin. And what did the auto industry do when oil prices moderated in the late 1980s and early 1990s? They went back to promoting horsepower instead of fuel efficiency and rolled out fleets of gas-guzzling SUVs that were great for short-term profits but made them even more vulnerable to the next oil shocks.

2. Some of today’s startups must grow into the new giants. While there are many enterprise tech vendors in $500 million to $5 billion range, few new suppliers have cracked the $10 billion run rate as independent companies. Large tech companies play a critical role in the IT economy, but customers must use their wallets to keep their own ecosystems healthy by fostering competition and innovations.

3. Systemic security and privacy solutions must be found. Buyer confidence could be torpedoed by cybercrime and careless data leakage. It will take a range of enabling technologies to give enterprise buyers more purchase confidence to embrace innovation.

Enterprise tech is not the Rust Belt, not by a long shot. There is every possibility that the technology industry will not go the way of the automobile industry. But the seeds of our growth could also be the seeds of our decay. And the ability to thrive requires innovations in our minds as much as our technologies. In the words of Mark Twain: “Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.”

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Article source: http://readwrite.com/2013/05/20/can-enterprise-tech-avoid-the-fate-of-the-automobile-industry

The Saudi-Japanese Automobile High Institute (SJAHI) guaranteed 250 jobs for young Saudis in automotive technology this year.
“Nine career paths offer attractive salaries and allowances following graduation in this field. In the past 10 years, more than 2,000 young Saudis found a job in this industry,” said SJAHI Director Salem bin Hassan Al-Asmari.
SJAHI students who signed their contract with a Japanese automobile company that paid their study fees can look forward to a monthly stipend of SR 1,500 during their studies from the Human Resources Development Fund.
“Following graduation, the students can directly get jobs in the same company with a salary of SR 4,000, with additional housing allowance and medical insurance. The institute enhances opportunities for employment. During discussions with Japanese car dealers, the institute created almost 250 vacancies in the field of technology and car maintenance for Saudis,” said Al-Asmari. “In two years, students spend more than 3,200 hours studying and training to specialize in technology and car maintenance. Experts say the market needs 200,000 technical automobile mechanics to replace foreigners.”
Al-Asmari said that there are currently two graduating classes at the institute, with 250 students in each, and that a 10th class of 206 students will graduate by the end of May. “Graduating students will get jobs immediately. There are eight companies currently sponsoring Saudi students,” he said.
The institute’s distinct incentives are to offer premium training. A typical career path in the industry spans maintenance, technician-training and can ultimately lead to appointment as a general manager of maintenance. The institute provides students with the required training through workshops by letting them gain experience through on-the-job training in maintenance centers of Japanese cars in the Kingdom.

A technical diploma from this institute is equivalent to a diploma from technical colleges in the Kingdom. There are about eight million vehicles in Saudi cities, a number that is estimated to increase by 800,000 cars annually. By 2020, there will be 14 million vehicles in the Kingdom, which will require a high level of efficiency for the maintenance. Saudi Arabia is planning to begin assembling cars and manufacturing parts, said Al-Asmari.

Jun Yoshida, Japanese consul general, who visited the institute recently, said that the most important aspect is job creation, especially in light of the Saudization process.

“There are many job opportunities, but Saudis must be well-trained. Recognized qualification is required to do a good job. SJAHI can provide this training, with three Japanese instructors giving car maintenance and repair training. Last June, the institute celebrated the 10th year of this joint venture, which is a milestone for Japanese-Saudi relations,” said Yoshida.

Saudi government departments also accept students that have trained at this institute because the group education it offers makes them qualified professionals in the field.

Article source: http://www.arabnews.com/news/452135

“We are investing about Rs 140 crore in the Hindupur unit and another Rs 40 crore in the Jejuri unit this year.”

Berger Paints India Ltd is setting up a new manufacturing unit in Jejuri, near Pune for automotive and industrial paints in the current financial year.

The company is in the process of setting up its largest unit at Hindupur in Andhra Pradesh, with an initial capacity of 8,000 tonnes a month, which can be scaled up to 16,000 tonnes.

“We are investing about Rs 140 crore in the Hindupur unit and another Rs 40 crore in the Jejuri unit this year,” said Abhijit Roy, Managing Director and CEO, Berger Paints. The investment is being funded from internal accruals. Last year, the company had invested about Rs 80 crore in the Hindupur unit, which is expected to be operational later this year. At present, Berger has a production capacity of around 24,000 tonnes a month, which will be expanded to around 40,000 when both Hindupur and Jejuri units are operational, Roy said.

Currently, the industrial, powder coating and automotive paints account for about 20 per cent of Berger’s sales, while the decorative paints account for the rest.

Berger, the country’s second largest paint vendor, has acquired the India operations of Sherwin Williams for an undisclosed sum in March. The acquisition will strengthen the Berger portfolio of exterior paints and will also enhance its manufacturing capacity by around 2,000 tonnes a month.

“We are retaining the Sherwin Williams brand for five years. The acquisition will enhance our presence mainly in the Pune and Mumbai regions of Maharashtra,” Roy said and expects the integration process to be completed in about 7-8 months and add about a percentage point to its overall marketshare. Further, Roy said the upcoming unit in Jejuri will give the company a competitive advantage as the company has been servicing the industrial consumers in the Western region mainly from its plant in West Bengal.

Besides, the company expects to cater to the automotive units in the West and South through the Jejuri unit.

Results on May 30

Berger Paints is expected to announce its earnings for fiscal 2013 on May 30. For the nine months of fiscal 2013, Berger reported a 29 per cent rise in net profits at Rs 174.6 crore on a revenue growth of 15 per cent at Rs 2,537.8 crore over corresponding period last year.

Article source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/in-expansion-mode-berger-paints-plans-units-for-auto-industry-segments/article4727917.ece

Morocco is allocating 600 million dirhams (54 million euros) to investment projects in the automotive industry, MAP reported on Wednesday (May 15th).

The contracts were signed between the ministry of industry, trade and new technologies, the Hassan II Fund and companies in the industry. The businesses include Delphi Packard Kénitra, Lear Automotive Morocco, Fujikura Automotive Morocco and Denso Thermal Morocco.

The projects aim to create 5,700 jobs.

Article source: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/newsbriefs/general/2013/05/16/newsbrief-03

Boston, MA — (SBWIRE) — 05/17/2013 — Company Mergers Acquisitions (MA), Partnerships Alliances and Investments reports offer a comprehensive breakdown of the organic and inorganic growth activity undertaken by an organization to sustain its competitive advantage.

Project Description:

‘ Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd. Mergers Acquisitions (MA), Partnerships Alliances and Investments report includes business description, detailed reports on mergers and acquisitions (MA), divestments, capital raisings, venture capital investments, ownership and partnership transactions undertaken by Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd. since January 2007.

Scope:

– Provides intelligence on Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd.’s MA, strategic partnerships and alliances, capital raising and private equity transactions.
– Detailed reports of various financial transactions undertaken by Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd. and its subsidiaries since 2007.
– Information about key financial and legal advisors for Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd.’s financial deals transactions.
– Financial deals tables and charts covering deal value and volumes trend, deal types and geographybased deal activity.

View Full Report Details and Table of Contents

Highlights:

This report includes Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd.’s contact information and business summary, tables, graphs, a list of partners and targets, a breakdown of financial and legal advisors, deal types, top deals by deal value, detailed deal reports, and descriptions and contact details of the partner, target, investor, and vendor firms, where disclosed.

The profile also includes detailed deal reports for all MA, private equity, public offering, venture financing, partnership and divestment transactions undertaken by Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd.. These deal reports contain information about target company financials, sources of financing, method of payment, deal values, and advisors for various parties, where disclosed.

Reasons to Purchase:

– Access comprehensive financial deals data along with charts and graph covering MA, private equity, and partnerships and alliances.
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Article source: http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/beijing-automotive-industry-holding-co-ltd-mergers-acquisitions-ma-partnerships-alliances-and-investment-report-new-market-study-published-249499.htm

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards set forth by the Obama administration has been called the single most important aspect in shaping the future of the automotive industry. It is hard to argue with that. Given our current love of speed and need for large trucks in our infrastructure, we still have a healthy thirst for fuel, which makes the CAFE industry goals of 35.5 MPG by 2016 and 54.5 MPG by 2025 an incredibly daunting task.

Were it not difficult enough to reach these standards, the industry must also adhere to ever increasing safety standards. Be it increased tolerances for certain crash conditions or the market demands for inclusion of advanced safety tech, vehicles have gained weight over the last two decades.

This conflict of increased MPG expectations and the added weight of required safety equipment seems like an impossible one to reconcile, but it is one that every automaker must adopt if it wishes to play ball in the automobile industry of the future.

It was this very topic that was at the heart of a roundtable discussion held last week at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology. Hosted by MIT, and the New England Motor Press Association, the 2013 NEMPA-MIT Roundtable, titled Mass vs. Efficiency: Hitting the Automotive Sweet Spot featured a panel that included esteemed engineering professors and the top automotive engineers in the business. Panelists included:

-Mike Stanton: President and CEO of Global Automakers

-David Leone: Executive Chief Engineer, GM Global Performance Luxury Cars

-Heiko Schmidt: Dept. Manager, Compact Cars, Mercedes-Benz USA

-Anders Tylman-Mikiewicz: General Manager, Volvo Monitoring Concept Center

The discussion was emcee’d by our very own Craig Fitzgerald (top) . You know, this guy. While discussions like this may lend themselves to members of each automaker talking about how great their products are (which happened at points), there was an honest effort to discuss this issue without bias or slant. The inclusion of third-party entities such as Stanton and members of the educational realm like MIT helped reinforce this notion.

Mike Stanton (above) spent a good deal of his time essentially setting up the question for others to answer by shaping the problem. “The most confusing and fascinating issue,” said Stanton, “is to find out how to reach these goals. We believe you can reduce mass and still be safe.” Stanton went on to point out that the real goal here is to reduce greenhouse emissions, and doing so though regulating consumption fossil fuels.

Perhaps the most intriguing speaker of the day was professor Tomasz Wierzbicki (below). He has consulted in the past with BMW’s RD dept. as to how to take weight from a vehicle. He understands the ways that we can remove weight, through more than just carbon fiber.

As the professor explained, “There is always a tradeoff between ‘safe’ and ‘light.’ Be it new aluminum alloys or magnesium extrusions.” He cited the Volkswagen XL1 for its use of aluminum extrusions, contributing to its 200 MPG capability.

Next up was David Leone (below), speaking on the efforts that GM has made in reducing the weight of the new Cadillac CTS. He shared the mantra of other speakers that, “there is no silver bullet.” Leone pointed out that the new CTS is 7% lighter than the outgoing model, but is longer, and uses several different grades of steel depending on application in the vehicle.

Leone went on to highlight the use of carbon fiber in the Corvette Stingray, as well as the advanced powertrain in the new Cadillac ELR. But as we know, the ELR is a fancy Chevy Volt, with different performance figures. What about a truly different powertrain? Like the plug-in diesel-hybrid Volvo V60 Plugin. It is perhaps one of the most fascinating new powertrains being pursued and was discussed by Volvo’s Anders Tylman-Mikiewicz (below).

The plug-in Volvo achieves 125 MPG, with a 31-mile pure-electric range. That range is enough to satisfy the commuting needs of many drivers, and those numbers have resulted in surprising response from customers. Volvo estimated that it would sell 5,000 units throughout 2013, but has already sold out its inventory for this year, suggesting that buyers are ready to pay a premium for such technology. (It runs £48775 in the UK, translating in to a US price of nearly $75,000). Volvo has said that it will produce 10,000 units in 2014, which doubles the entire market for performance wagons.

Does it show a true adoption of a new technology? A market that is willing to accept a novel new drivetrain? Or is the acceptance that one vehicle will not be the world-beating fuel-mizer that many are searching for. There are no silver bullets, but it is the considered combination of many different technologies. Combining a diesel powertrain with plug-in capabilities and a hybrid powertrain, you create the thoughtful amalgam of varying tech that can help improve fuel economy. Oh and it just happens to be on one of the safest cars on the road today. How do you like them (green) apples?

Article source: http://news.boldride.com/2013/05/mit-roundtable-talks-future-of-auto-industry/29321/

High input costs, power tariffs spell doom for the sector

The country’s Rs 25,000-crore forging industry is under stress due to slowdown in the automotive sector and increasing input costs.

“The sector, which had grown by 18 per cent during 2011-12 over the previous financial year, is set to see a flat business during 2012-13, mainly impacted by the slowdown in the automotive industry,” said Babu Rao, President of Association of Forging Industry of India and Managing Director of GSB Forge.

Explaining the industry’s challenges, he said the sector is faced with increasing costs of steel and other raw materials and growing power tariffs, which gets accentuated in the Southern States.

In addition, the sector is dependant on the automotive business which contributes to about 70 per cent of total business.

For instance, in a State like Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh, where industry is subjected to power cuts, they have to depend on costly power supplies or generate power using diesel gen-sets, which work out to Rs 12-15 per unit.

Such high input costs, make the forging industry unremunerative in the backdrop of growing global competition, he said.

The forging industry has installed capacity of 3.75 million tonnes a year and achieved 75 per cent capacity utilisation at 2.8 million tonnes. In fact, this could have gone up but for the overall slowdown, he said.

The industry players are caught between its suppliers, who are increasing costs and original equipment suppliers (including automotive sector players), who want to keep tight control on costs citing slowdown, he said.

DIVERSIFICATION

In order to diversify and reduce dependence on the automotive sector, the forging industry consciously took to some other sectors, including power and manufacturing. However, the overall economic slowdown has impacted them also.

In a fragmented forging industry, majority of the companies come under the small and medium industry category. They do not have the flexibility to adjust to such demanding environment.

While costs are going up, there are challenges in the power sector and increasing competition from Chinese companies. In fact, Chinese companies are supplying equipment and also providing relatively cheaper credit to power sector companies.

rishikumar.vundi@thehindu.co.in

Article source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/forging-industry-hit-by-auto-sector-slowdown-to-diversify/article4721358.ece