Feb 19, 2019

“Disruptive Technologies Are Changing Automakers’ Needs, Creating Opportunities for Suppliers” Autonomous, electric, and connected vehicles require new designs, new suppliers By Mark Shortt, Design-2-Part Magazine   Carmakers in North America, Europe, and Asia are doing a lot of things today that they’ve never done, or even attempted to do, before. When you consider that the crown jewel of their research and development efforts—self-driving cars—is rewriting the rules of how cars are designed, manufactured, and used, that starts to make more sense. “When you look at autonomous driving, it still is amazing to me that you could sit in a car and it drives itself,” said Ken Beller, vice president of sales and marketing at The Weiss-Aug Group, a group of manufacturing companies headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. “It stops at red lights and parks itself, and that’s truly amazing.” Self-driving, or autonomous, cars are part of a larger trend currently sweeping the global automotive industry: the development of what are known as ACES—automated, connected, electric, and shared—vehicles. In a major announcement last March, General Motors said that it plans to begin producing self-driving cars, without steering wheels or pedals, in 2019. Along with the car, GM plans to start a commercial service centered on an app that enables people to hail rides. General Motors said that the car, the Cruise AV (autonomous vehicle), is based on its Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle (EV). It will be produced at the same plant where the Bolt EV is produced—GM’s Orion Township plant in Michigan. GM took a major step toward commercialization of the vehicle after it acquired Cruise Automation, a San Francisco-based developer of autonomous vehicle technology, in 2016. The car is part of GM’s efforts to enable a future with “zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.” General Motors’ efforts to commercialize autonomous cars at scale were bolstered last May, when the SoftBank Vision Fund announced that it would invest $2.25 billion in GM Cruise Holdings LLC (GM Cruise). In a statement announcing the funding, Michael Ronen, managing partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers, said that “GM has made significant progress toward realizing the dream of completely automated driving to dramatically reduce fatalities, emissions, and congestion. The GM Cruise...

Jan 23, 2018

By Neil Dutta, Bloomberg  The global economy is a big driver, but domestic demand is even more important. U.S. manufacturing production just had its best year since 2011, yet some argue that 2017 was as good as it will get and that a slowdown is ahead. We think the opposite is more likely: Factory output is poised to speed up. Investors worried that the equity market is stretched should take heart. Stronger growth in factory output is a good reason to remain cyclically oriented, especially in U.S. industrial stocks. Trade, one of the biggest engines of the sector in 2017, is likely to continue to gather momentum. Stronger global growth expectations and a weaker dollar should help as manufacturing goods represent about half of all exports. Moreover, at least some of the current recovery in factories can be traced to the rebound in the mining industry. Mining output declined steadily from December 2014 to September 2016. Production was down 0.6 percent during this period, when there was also a sharp pullback in oil and drilling equipment. Today, we are seeing the opposite dynamic. With commodity markets in recovery, mining-related investment is more of a tailwind to factories. While the global economy is a big driver of manufacturing growth, U.S. domestic demand is even more important. Every 1 percentage point increase in domestic demand (GDP net of trade) boosts manufacturing production by 1.34 percentage point on an annualized basis, while every 1 percentage point increase in global industrial production outside the U.S. lifts domestic manufacturing production by 0.44 percentage point. There are several positive, somewhat related signs for the manufacturing outlook in the domestic economy. First, U.S. inventory investment is simply too low. Although the contribution of inventories to growth can be volatile from quarter to quarter, inventories tend to grow in line with final sales over longer periods of time. Today, that simply is not happening; inventories have been trailing the growth in domestic demand. If the economy expands at 2.2 percent, the rough trend since the end of the recession, inventories would need to grow by about $50 billion per year to keep pace with demand. Inventories ran below that level in 2017....

Nov 1, 2017

Featured in Design-2-Part Magazine SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Audi and Alta Devices, a subsidiary of solar-cell specialist, Hanergy Thin Film Power, plan to work together to integrate solar cells into panoramic glass roofs of Audi models. With this cooperation, the partners aim to generate solar energy to increase the range of Audi electric vehicles. The first prototype is expected to be developed by the end of 2017. As the first step, Audi and Alta Devices (www.altadevices.com) will integrate solar cells into a panoramic glass roof. But the companies plan to eventually cover almost the entire surface of the roof with solar cells, which they say is possible due to Alta’s uniquely flexible, thin, and efficient technology. The electricity generated from the cells will flow into the car’s electric system and can supply, for example, the air-conditioning system and seat heaters—a gain in efficiency that has a direct positive impact on the range of an Audi electric vehicle. “The range of electric cars plays a decisive role for our customers,” said Audi Board of Management Member for Procurement Dr. Bernd Martens, in a press release. “Together with Alta Devices and Hanergy, we plan to install innovative solar technology in our electric cars that will extend their range and is also sustainable.  At a later stage, solar energy could directly charge the traction battery of Audi electric vehicles. That would be a milestone along the way to achieving sustainable, emission-free mobility.” Alta Devices’ innovative solar cells will generate the green electricity. The solar cells are reported to be very thin and flexible, hold the world-record for efficiency, and perform extremely well in low light and high temperature environments. “This partnership with Audi is Alta Devices’ first cooperation with a high-end auto brand,” said Dr. Jian Ding, senior vice president of Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd., CEO of Alta Devices, Inc., and co-leader of the Audi/Hanergy Thin Film Solar Cell Research and Development Project. “By combining Alta’s continuing breakthroughs in solar technology with Audi’s drive toward the future of the auto industry, we will define the solar car of the...

Oct 4, 2017

By Charles Murray, DesignNews Future GM battery-electric vehicles will include coupes, sedans, crossovers, SUVs and possibly even pickup trucks. General Motors raised the stakes in the auto industry’s ongoing competition to build more affordable, long-range electric cars this week, announcing it would roll out two more all-new EVs in the next 18 months, and 20 more by 2023. The giant automaker said that the first two vehicles will be “based off learnings from the Chevrolet Bolt EV.” The others will include coupes, sedans, crossovers, and SUVs. GM told Design News that it would also not rule out the possibility of a pickup truck. To underscore its effort, GM released a photo including eight different vehicles silhouetted underneath drapes, clearly exhibiting different sizes and shapes. The silhouetted figures represent the array of pure, battery-powered cars that the company will release in the next five-and-a-half years, all designed from the ground, up. “The Bolt EV was the first, affordable, long-range all-electric vehicle,” said GM spokesman Kevin Kelly. “We’ve cracked the code. We know how to do it.” GM’s statement comes at a time when much of the entrenched auto industry seems as if it is racing to make bigger and bigger announcements about electric cars. Today, Ford Motor Co. said it has formed an internal unit, called Team Edison, whose charter it is to accelerate development of electric vehicles, while forging partnerships with other auto manufacturers and suppliers. Similarly, Toyota Motor Corp. said last Thursday that it is teaming with Mazda Motor Corp. and with supplier Denso Corp. to “jointly develop basic structural technologies for electric vehicles.” The announcements provide a broad signal that traditional automakers have accepted electrification, but it’s still clear that most of them are unsure how fast it will take place. Industry analysts, such as Navigant Research , have predicted that approximately 4% of vehicles sold worldwide in 2025 will be battery-electric. Other analysts, however, have forecast figures in excess of 20%. “If you try to guess anything out to about 2030, your crystal ball will be pretty fuzzy,” Kelly told us. Analysts today acknowledged that no one’s sure whether consumers, even the younger ones, will embrace pure electric cars. “Engineers are starting to see a...

Sep 13, 2017

By Cecilia Kang, The New York Times WASHINGTON — Lawmakers in the House took a major step on Wednesday toward advancing the development of driverless cars, approving legislation that would put the vehicles onto public roads more quickly and curb states from slowing their spread. Under the bill, which was approved by a unanimous voice vote, carmakers can add hundreds of thousands of self-driving cars to America’s road in the next few years. States, which now have a patchwork of rules regulating the vehicles, would have to follow the new federal law. The House vote sets the stage for a battle between safety advocates and companies that make the largely unproven technology. Automakers say the vehicles could greatly reduce roadway fatalities and help their businesses, but many safety advocates say they are not ready for wide deployment. The next steps will come in the Senate, which is expected to consider a similar bill soon. Lawmakers who support the legislation said the country’s confusing regulatory environment was hampering the driverless-car industry’s prospects. “Self-driving cars have the potential to save lives especially when the majority of fatalities are caused by human error,” said Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan. “The question is whether we are in the driver’s seat and not to cede it to China or India.” Auto and technology giants, including Ford Motor, General Motors and Waymo, Alphabet’s driverless division, have pushed hard for the new law. They have also pressed regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to clarify safety guidelines covering self-driving technology. Elaine L. Chao, the transportation secretary, is expected to announce revised guidelines for the vehicles next week in Michigan. In recent years, dozens of states have passed laws related to self-driving safety, some of which carmakers view as too heavy-handed. The companies have, for example, fought proposals in California, Michigan and New York that would require driverless cars to be electric-powered and to contain steering wheels and brake pedals. “The reason why Congress is doing this is that there was a growing concern of a vacuum created because N.H.T.S.A. hadn’t acted and the states were acting in N.H.T.S.A.’s place,” said Marc Scribner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research group in...