Introduction

The end of the 20th century has witnessed the globalization of the car industry and environmental issues. Leading firms in the car industry operate on several continents, typically having production facilities in each of their major markets. The result is the creation of global companies with the capital and human resources to compete in the automotive industry of the 21st century. Equally significant is the emergence of global environmental issues. Climate change has become a major policy issue as the emissions of major greenhouse gases (GHGs) continue to rise and changes are measured in the atmospheric concentration of these gases. The predicted warming of the planet is reinforced by warmer than average global temperatures during the 1990s and 1998 being the warmest year on record. The emergence of more extreme weather events has also resulted in record damage and insurance claims (Dotto 2000). Governments around the world have responded by signing the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Pr otocol which set targets for the reduction of GHG emissions. However, the Protocol has not been ratified by enough governments to bring it into force and even if the targets were achieved, they would only slow the rate of growth of global GHG emissions. Even stronger actions are required to restore the previous balance of atmospheric gases.

The automotive industry is a major source of GHG emissions, especially [CO.sub.2], because of the dominant role of oil as the fuel of choice. The potential for conflict between an automotive industry that seeks to expand by producing ever larger numbers of cars for a global population growing in numbers and affluence and governments who seek to reduce the risks of climate change by reducing [CO.sub.2] emissions is enormous. The conflict is also evident at the level of individuals. Many people want to increase their mobility and also protect the environment. No single country or company can resolve these conflicting objectives on its own. However, solutions need to be found and groups offering solutions are expected to gain a strategic advantage over those who ignore the needs of the future and simply try to continue current practices (Sanford and Olson, this volume).

This paper examines the role Japanese automakers have taken in bringing new technologies to market that will reduce the environmental impact of automobile use. These firms do not work in isolation, but carefully monitor market trends, consumer preferences and government policy both in Japan and overseas. Growing environmental problems are identified as causing changes in consumer attitudes and government priorities. Global climate change, smog and poor urban air quality, increased levels of noise and auditory pollution all highlight problems that need solutions. These trends are not unique to Japan as governments and people around the world recognise the growing environmental problems of the 21st century and the role of automobiles as a major source of these problems.

One solution is to develop and use new technologies that reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and smog precursors. This paper will review the tension caused by a growing global automobile industry and the environmental impact of increased automobile use. The global context is set by increased levels of integration among automobile firms, increased policy integration, and the global magnitude of environmental impacts. National governments may respond at different rates to these global trends, but generally changes such as higher air quality standards in one country are often adopted in other countries later. Firms with an eye on the global market thus respond to changes in other countries as well as those in their home market. For example, average fleet fuel efficiency standards in the USA or emission standards in California are of direct interest to all major car producers. Technologies are thus developed not just for application in a single market, but for their potential to be sold globally. Most major auto mobile producers have a range of prototype alternative fuel vehicles, however few of these vehicles are manufactured and sold. Particular attention is paid to the innovative fuel cell technology developed by Ballard Power Systems. The environmental performance of this technology is compared to the hybrid electric-gasoline vehicles developed and marketed by Honda and Toyota. In addition to developing and producing the technology, sales are essential to provide a revenue stream to the firm and to replace the older, more environmentally harmful technology.

This paper looks at some of the opportunities created by conflicting global transport and environmental objectives. Those firms and people who are able to design and produce systems compatible with conflicting future needs are expected to prosper. The Japanese automotive industry is examined with particular attention paid to the consistent policy setting created by government, industry associations and firms in their environmental policy objectives. Japanese automotive firms are not only among the largest in the world, they are also recognised as leaders for new technologies to meet environmental objectives and their global production capacity enables them to transfer the technologies developed in one area throughout their global operations (Romm 1999).

Interviews were held with automotive industry leaders in Canada, the United States and Japan (see Koshiba et al., this volume). The views expressed were supported with information from secondary sources (brochures, press releases and web-sites from corporate and government sources). Information was collected on the new technologies being developed for automobiles. These developments are set within the context of a broader car-and-the-environment debate. New environmental technologies introduced in Japan are expected to be transferred to the United States, Canada and other countries as in previous rounds of emerging technologies. The long-term view adopted by Japanese firms and the supporting policy environment created by government, industry associations and corporate plans are explored as factors that enable Japanese firms to deliver new technologies to the global market before their competitors. The result is a series of environmental awards for the leading firms while others seek to catch up.

Alternate models of technology development

The Japanese production system has been widely studied with automobile manufacturers identified as models of flexible production (Fujita and Hill 1995), however, the production system should be set in a wider context of societal relations (Parker et al. 2000) to explore how new technologies are developed and then promoted. Societal demands for improved environmental performance create pressures for new technologies. Bleviss (1990) reviewed international performance in the development of new technologies to identify policy options to encourage low emission/low fuel consumption vehicles. She concluded that prevailing practices differed markedly. In Europe, government and industry were argued to be successful at forming partnerships that created prototypes of new vehicle technologies, but that they typically failed to transfer the prototype to the mass production and marketing stage. In Japan, it was argued that government and industry had a long history of successful cooperation to develop new prototypes and th en transfer the ideas to the production stage for widespread sale in the market. In North America, it was concluded that government and industry had failed to cooperate and that innovation relied heavily on efforts by individual firms. As a result, it was argued that policy initiatives to promote innovation and new technology in North America through cooperative research programs should include suppliers and small innovative inventor businesses that have contributed many of the innovations now found in the automotive industry (Bleviss 1990).

The potential for new technologies to come from small North American firms is dramatically demonstrated by the fuel cell technology developed by Ballard Power Systems in Vancouver, B.C. The story of Ballard’s small operation being able to develop more efficient fuel cells than the development teams of large firms such as General Motors is well known. By 1999, seven out of ten prototype fuel cell vehicles displayed at major Auto trade shows were using Ballard fuel cell systems (Record 1999). With water as the principle emission during use, fuel cells were heralded as a solution to pressing environmental problems caused by the growing global car industry.

Offering everything from silent starts to high-torque speed boosts with ultra-low emissions, the powerful integrated starter-generator’s capabilities appear to be a technician’s dream.

But it also might be a supplier’s nightmare. Engines could shed a host of time-tested components, from the gear-toothed flywheel and starter motor to alternators and other belt-driven accessories.

Adoption of any integrated starter-generator system also will mean large cost increases for both power generation and battery storage over today’s conventional systems, says Gary Cameron, chief engineer of Delphi Automotive Systems Corp.’s Energenix working group.

“If you just look at integrated starter-generator systems as producing electricity, it’s probably a multiple of three to five times more expensive than what you have on the electrical system today, roughly. The key to making the value work on these things is what you enable with this system,” Cameron says.

That same factor of three to five times current costs applies to the battery systems needed to manage the power generated and used by integrated starter-generator systems, compared with today’s relatively modest 12-volt battery costs, he says.

ELECTRIFIED GOLF

Siemens Automotive Corp. engineer Jorg Lehmann has placed an integrated starter-generator in the 1.6-liter engine of a Volkswagen Golf, a relatively heavy car by European standards. His team also installed a technically advanced automatic-manual transmission in the package.

Siemens chose the Golf because it already provided the engine control unit for the car. But the prototype is meant as a technology demonstrator only. There are no plans at VW to build a Golf equipped with the system.

Even in the demonstrator, though, Lehmann says the ability of the system to stop an engine and restart it, rather than having it run at idle speed, already is good and continues to be refined.

“There is a problem for the driver to get his foot off the brake and to the accelerator pedal as fast as this engine starts,” he says, citing times of 0.3 seconds to spin an engine past 500 rpm. Conventional starter motors typically take about 1.2 seconds to crank an engine to life.

But fast – and silent – starts aren’t the only key to the system’s impending arrival in production cars.

It’s the ability to turn an internal combustion vehicle into what the industry has termed a mild hybrid, driving a 42-volt electrical system that excites automakers.

COLD-START CURE

The systems have many different names, including start/stop generator; integrated starter alternator; and Integrated Starter Alternator Damper, which was trade named by ContiTech and shown in a prototype in 1998.

The device will allow automakers to use smaller, less gas-hungry engines because its electric torque helps speed off from a stop and uses an electric motor turbo boost when speed increases are needed on the road.

That lets a light-displacement gasoline engine work efficiently, maintaining speeds and charging batteries for the next boost.

Integrated starter-generator systems also are expected to reduce emissions during cold start and initial low-speed driving, the time when the heaviest tailpipe emissions occur.

While moving the car with its internal electric motor, the internal combustion engine’s output is used to heat the catalytic converter. When emissions system conditions are ideal, the engine begins to share more of the driving load. This feature requires some advanced battery technology.

Finally, the integrated starter generator may turn the harshest engine into a purring kitten. The device can pulse to cancel torque peaks in the driveshaft, smoothing the output of otherwise unacceptable powerplants. That capability could speed the introduction of new, clean-burning small diesel engines in cars.

“You have hit upon a key interest,” says Franz Wressnigg, president of Siemens Automotive Systems Group.

Wressnigg and Siemens engineers say that using a starter-generator makes it possible to reduce the compression ratio in light diesels while creating the kind of steady-state operating environment that is the engine’s strength.

Other companies also have tied the devices to diesel.

DaimlerChrysler’s Dodge ESX3 concept, the result of the company’s Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles work, uses a three-cylinder 1.5-liter diesel equipped with permanent-magnet integrated starter alternator supplied by Delphi.

Wressnigg says Siemens already has worked with one small-car manufacturer that believes a starter-generator type system makes it possible to offer a low-cost car by equipping the vehicles with a smaller, cheaper gasoline engine. He would not identify the vehicle or its maker but indicated it was not a North American manufacturer.

“You should not only take into consideration the electrical architecture but that you can reduce the engine size,” Wressnigg said.

KEY TO REDUCED EMISSIONS

Francois Castaing, former Chrysler executive vice president in charge of vehicle engineering, says the starter devices are crucial for getting improvements in fuel economy without a tailpipe emissions tradeoff.

“The cornerstone is a starter alternator integrated with the flywheel, something like that, and a new battery system. Maybe the first step will be a beltless engine with electronically controlled water pump, and electric steering and air conditioning,” Castaing said during a panel discussion at the Convergence 2000 meeting in October in Detroit.

Norio Omori, Denso Corp. senior managing director of engineering r&d, says that to reach fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions targets already set to be introduced in Europe, small to medium-sized cars will need a motor-generator system driven by 42-volt power.

“A hybrid vehicle including the 42-volt stop and start, minor or major (electrical) regeneration and electric vehicle driving at low speed will be necessary to meet that requirement,” Omori says.

COST MAJOR FACTOR

Harry Husted, senior systems engineer for Delphi Automotive Systems, warned that cost is a major factor in discussions of mild hybrids and starter systems. Delphi has named its system Energen 10 and believes it offers promise in fuel economy gains over its investment price.

“The value of a hybrid powertrain has to be greater than its cost. That’s very simple but also very profound,” Husted said.

That means that the move to starter-generator systems may begin with an interim solution – essentially a heftier belt-driven alternator that can act as a starter motor.

The system abandons some of the benefits of a true starter generator, particularly torque pulse damping, but does not require the total engineering change of a starter generator.

“Most of our competitors are offering induction machines on the crankcase housing; we’re offering it here and implementing many of the same functions,” said Daryl Wilson, Visteon Corp.’s technical representative for Energy Transformation Systems.

Visteon showed a water-cooled start/stop alternator designed in partnership with Gates Rubber, which supplies a toughened serpentine belt as part of the system, during Convergence 2000.

Wilson says that such systems offer an affordable, evolutionary way to move to a start/stop engine system.

“Delphi also has developed a start/stop belt-driven alternator, the Energen 5, and recently demonstrated an air-cooled version during the Paris auto show.

“We think it could be well suited for applications in small cars in Europe.

“There’s not that much lateral space in the engine compartment for the system, where this belt drive off to one side can fit,” Cameron says.

He believes a mix of technologies – air-cooled start/stop alternators, liquid cooled alternators and starter-generators – will come to automobiles in the era of 42-volt systems. But Cameron also believes voltages in cars will inevitably increase, demanding further refinements to meet fuel and environmental challenges.

Other engineers view the alternator as a low-cost but potentially time-consuming diversion on the path to true integrated starter systems.

But with 42-volt systems virtually assured for power-hungry cars of the next decade, all agree some form of integrated start/stop system is coming. Today ’s rasping, squealing starter motors will go to join the hand crank in the halls of automotive nostalgia.

But the right ones can make an automaker see green.

A car can have the smoothest engine, the best brakes and the nicest interior, but if it’s the wrong color, it just won’t sell, said Alan Starling, a Kissimmee, Fla., auto dealer who owns Pontiac, Buick, Chevrolet, GMC and Oldsmobile dealerships.

After the engineering is done, it all comes down to choosing the colors that work best with the shape and style of the car.

But unlike many other aspects of automaking, there is no exact science for this. Automakers say color selection involves studying trends, monitoring the mood of the country, gut feelings and, sometimes, even luck.

Take the case of the Pontiac Bonneville sports sedan.

One day about three years ago as Pontiac engineers were putting the final touches on the new Bonneville, the time came for Pontiac Division General Manager John Middlebrook to choose which exclusive colors would make it to production.

Since the Bonneville would be built in a General Motors factory along with several other brands of GM cars, many of the colors were to be shared between Buicks, Chevrolets, Oldsmobiles and other GM vehicles.

But every year, Middlebrook said, each division chooses two or three exclusive colors.

Two other GM divisions didn’t want a dark green that was available that year, but Middlebrook had a hunch that it might work on the Bonneville. So he had one painted in that color.

“When I looked at the Bonneville, I saw a lot of Jaguar influences in the rear haunches in that product. I thought British Racing Green was the right color. It just looked like the right thing to do,” said Middlebrook from Pontiac’s headquarters in Michigan.

Middlebrook liked what he saw and made the dark green an exclusive Pontiac color. It was a decision that has led Pontiac to a pot of gold at the end of a long rainbow of sales.

The Bonneville has become one of the hottest selling Pontiac sedans in years, and the dark green version has been leading the way.

Middlebrook said customers order about a third of all Bonnevilles in dark green. On the more expensive SSE and supercharged Bonneville SSEi models, dark green accounts for 40 percent of sales. But it’s rare, Middlebrook said, for one color to dominate so.

“We used a gut judgment on that dark green, but as it turned out, it really did fit the product and image,” said Middlebrook.

Orlando businessman Bob Kearney agrees. When he decided to buy a new Bonneville recently, picking the color was the easy part.

He grew fond of British Racing Green Jaguars when he and his wife lived in Great Britain.

And because the Bonneville also reminded him of the Jaguar, he said he never considered any color other than dark green.

“It was the first impression we had of Jags. It conveyed a certain elegance to most people,” said Kearney, of Kearney Systems in Orlando.

Kearney said his Bonneville, an SSE model outfitted with gold wheels and gold pinstripes, draws plenty of compliments.

“It turns heads and is constantly getting second looks,” he said.

But some cars and colors don’t work out so well.

Toyota has found that a shade of purple on its midsize Lexus ES 300 luxury sedan has underwhelmed buyers.

Don Brown, Toyota’s national product manager, said Toyota monitors how well colors sell two ways.

“We track the volume we sell and the velocity _ the average number of days a car sits in stock before it is sold. We might be selling an acceptable volume of purple cars but if they sit at the dealership three times longer, we might discontinue that color or change it,” Brown said from Toyota’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance, Calif.

At Toyota, choosing colors is a complex procedure because the automaker’s vehicles are exported all over the world. And car buyers in each country have unique tastes, Brown said. Not only that, but in the United States there are regional color preferences. For example, lighter colors, he said, are generally more popular in the Southeast.

Many colors that are popular in Japan and other countries won’t sell here, Brown said. In Japan, shades of yellow and gold are popular on cars because, he said, Japanese tea often has those colors and car buyers there are familiar with them.

In Europe, dull shades of green and some shades of yellow are popular on Range Rover luxury sport-utility vehicles, but those colors wouldn’t sell well here, said Bill Baker of Land Rover of North America, the Maryland-based importer of the British-made vehicles.
“Color is a matter of style. Like a suit of clothes, it’s an expression of your personality,” said Baker.

Automakers such as Land Rover and Toyota that export vehicles all over the world have a tougher time choosing the right colors.

“If every country wanted 10 exclusive colors, we couldn’t do it” because the production lines are not designed to handle that many different color combinations, he said.

Even though automakers know that buyers always will want basic colors such as white, red, blue and black, there still is a lot of testing, analyzing, predicting and guesswork involved in picking other colors.

“A lot of it is gut feeling, trying to match the color and shape of a car. Like any other process, we try to study our market and study where trends are going,” said Brown of Toyota.

He said Toyota designers try out colors on clay mockups of cars, sometimes using more than one color at a time. One side of a car could be green, while the other side might be red, he said.

At General Motors, designers use a special kind of paint that can be peeled off.

Pontiac’s Middlebrook said that no longer are color decisions made based on what looks good on a 10-inch color card. Now, all colors being considered are applied to the cars.

“It is very important that you go beyond looking at color chips. You can only really make a decision by putting the color on a car. We put the peel coat on and take the car outside. We look at every new color on the product before we make a decision. And we find that what might look beautiful on a 10-by-10-inch patch might change once it’s outside on the car with all the trim in place,” he said.

In the old days, GM used to paint thousands of cars different colors, Middlebrook said.

“Not many years ago, we had a big color show in Phoenix. The cars would be driven by, and we would vote on the colors we liked.”

At Toyota and other automakers, ideas for new colors come from many sources. Brown said Toyota tracks social and political events as well as trends in the economy. For instance, when the economy is down, people tend to go for brighter colors. Today’s environmental movement has made earth-tone colors popular with buyers, he said.

But Toyota officials also meet with designers and color planners from other industries _ from appliance makers to fashion designers to plumbing fixture manufacturers _ to learn what colors are popular on other items. Middlebrook said GM also does this.

“Color is a major part of the purchasing decision,” said Starling, who has been an auto dealer in Kissimmee for more than 20 years. He said once a customer decides on which model of car he wants, color is usually the next consideration.

Even though he doesn’t care for some of newest colors used by GM, Starling trusts the process used to pick them.

“It’s amazing how much time and money and effort that goes into it. I used to question some of those decisions, but they are way ahead of the curve. It’s really one of the neatest things about our industry. With the long lead times this business requires, they make very few mistakes,” said Starling.

There are engineering meetings taking place at major corporations where the “D” word is no longer permissible. These days the diesel engine can only be referred to as a CIDI (compression ignition direct injection) engine or CIDI technology. And while this does appear to be a U.S. only phenomenon, it is gathering momentum and popularity quickly. The mayor of Tokyo firmly renounced the diesel last October.

This comes at a time when diesels are about to become much more prominent an large pickups and also are beginning to test the waters in smaller pickups and SUVs. The diesel also looms large as a handy doomsday machine if CAFE requirements come to crowd out truck and SUV futures.

Cummins has re-engineered the B series for Dodge. The Isuzu Duramax will debut with GMC and Chevy heavy pickups for 2001. The Navistar V-6 is on the way and Detroit Diesel expects to soon announce a European SUV customer for its new 3 L, VR3024 engine. While set to apply diesels in record numbers on the moneymaking side of the house, the auto companies are trying to distance themselves from negative diesel perceptions when rooting for the all-singing, all-dancing green team Olympics. Would you please just drop the bogus spin and say it plain, boys? The modern diesel is a green machine.

CIDI is not new at all, although the latest versions with common rail fuel systems and pilot injection are light years ahead of pre-electronic diesels. With ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and aftertreatment devices, this will be the power plant that will take us into the fuel cell era. Why do we have to call it something else?

From one perspective it is very ironic that all the major hybrid entries in the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) feature diesel engines, although they are referred to as heat engines or CIDI engines and you won’t find the word “diesel” in any of the current collateral material or press releases. The DaimlerChrysler PNGV display did make reference to the diesel in its hybrid, but I expect CIDI terminology to take over there when Chrysler introduces the latest version of its NGV later this spring.

The PNGV program began back in 1993. It created a partnership between the federal government (including seven agencies and 19 federal laboratories) and the Big Three. At the time, that meant Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. The end point is 2004, when production prototypes are supposed to be fielded that are basically family sedans good for 80 mpg and zero to 62 mph acceleration in 12 seconds. At the Detroit Auto Show, Ford unveiled its Prodigy PNGV and GM unveiled the Precept and both contain an army of marvelous technology in addition to the propulsion systems. A diesel prime mover, or CDI heat engine, is used by both PNGV models.

There are electric concept cars coming. Ford is launching the “Think” family of vehicles. GM has a fuel cell version of the Precept. Honda announced the fuel cell-powered FCX vehicle at the Tokyo Motor Show last fall and said it will be on the road by 2003. It remains for Honda to define “on the road.” All this is well and good. But I believe electric golf carts will still be outselling electric cars four to one in 2020.

The real story is the diminishing role of the gasoline engine, which I suppose people in the “not know” will call SIFI (spark ignition fuel injected) technology. Let’s try the big picture. At one end of the spectrum, look at the PNGV effort as the most serious attempt yet to bring forward family sedans that catapult the auto industry to new levels of fuel efficiency. This program has substance and is harnessing some space age technology — and not for space shuttle prices. And the diesel is the prime mover for these vehicles.

In the middle ground, look at how prevalent the diesel passenger car has become in Europe. Gasoline engines have lost significant market share. And then at the other end of the auto spectrum, we have the heavy pickups and the bruteutes, and the diesel segment is growing fast and could take over with higher fuel prices or a more aggressive CAFE landscape. The SUV marker in Europe is only evolving, but diesel is again expected to be a prime power source.

I fail to see where this charade with CIDI terminology here in the U.S. serves any purpose. It is a shallow attempt to sweep the proud history of the diesel engine into the dustbin, while the new engineering whiz kids lay claim to the advances. They simply stand on the shoulders of those that came before.

This battle of semantics is also a sop to authorities like CARB and SCAQMD to have them reconsider their anti-diesel bias. Fine. Go ahead. Score yet another point for the politically correct.

But the diesel by any other name is still the one to beat. The prospects have never been better.

The leading cause of death for children from 6 to 14 years old is a traffic accident, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Crashes kill six out of 10 children who are not restrained in child safety seats.

Fortunately, improving safety is an ever-increasing trend at auto manufacturers, such as Honda, as well as at auto accessory stores where products like BabyVue are great for checking on your youngsters. A minicamera focuses on the back seat area and displays the image on a small screen below a wide-angle rearview mirror that replaces your original mirror.
Most drivers know that buckling up and using a child safety seat when children are traveling along is plain common sense, but the NHTSA says that most children riding in special seats are not properly restrained. The seats may be too small, have no head support, or might be belted in the wrong positions. For infants, the NHTSA advises that only rear-facing seats should be used, in particular to protect the spine.

For toddlers, convertible seats that can be forward- or rear-facing are best, and for preschoolers, booster seats that raise your child higher from the back seat itself are recommended. You can also buy a youth car seat for in-between sizes. The seats have a five-point harness that can be removed as the child grows, turning the youth seat into a booster seat.
The ideal spot to place a child safety seat is in the middle of the back seat. All children under 12 should ride in the back seat.

Most new cars have child-detecting sensors in their front-passenger equipment, but it’s still safest to keep your children in the back until they’re teen-agers.
When children outgrow baby car seats, at around 40 pounds, they should be transferred to a booster seat until they’re big enough to fit into an adult seat belt, at around 80 pounds and 4 feet, 9 inches tall.

The average baby weighs 20 pounds at nine months, and 22 pounds at 1 year. A child under 80 pounds is generally too small to use the standard adult seat belt that is part of the vehicle’s equipment because the belt tends to ride up over a child’s stomach and cut across the neck. In a crash, this position can cause critical and even fatal injuries.
Honda is among several car companies eager to help buyers and current owners evaluate a vehicle for compatibility with quality child safety seats. Here are some of Honda’s tips for parents buying a new car:

Take your child’s safety seat and its installation instruction manual with you to the dealership to see if the seat will fit properly in the car you’re considering.

Look for a car with a relatively flat back seat and high head restraints to support a child’s head at least up to the ears. Babies have heavy heads and weak necks with soft bones and stretchy ligaments, so head support is critical.

Avoid heavily contoured seats, bucket seats, and scooped out seats. It is difficult to accommodate car seats or booster seats on these types of seats.

It’s easier to install a child’s seat if the vehicle’s seat belts come out from the area between the seatback and seat cushion rather than from the seat itself.

Make sure that every seat has both a shoulder and a lap belt.

Check if the new vehicle has tether rings to hold additional straps for a child seat.

Ask the salesperson to demonstrate how your child’s safety seat will lock into place.

If you’re buying a used car, you may need to buy a locking clip, which can usually be ordered from a dealer. Before sitting your children in the back seat of the car, know which vehicles have good rear-seat safety ratings.

Among 2001 sedans and minivans that are highly rated in this category are Mazda’s Protege, Saturn’s SL, Toyota’s Echo, Buick’s LeSabre, Lincoln’s LS, Audi’s A8, Volvo’s S80, Ford’s Windstar, Honda’s Odyssey and Toyota’s Sienna.

Choosing the wrong colour when you order your shiny new 53 registered car could end up costing you dear.
And according to motor trade experts,if you opt for a trendy,bright colour, you could end up seeing red when you eventually come to trade it in a few years down the line.
Experts at Parker’s Car Price reckon you can save money in the long term by choosing the right colour for your car now.

Parker’s editor, Steve Rose, says: “The British are still a conservative bunch when it comes to car colour and, despite manufacturers spicing up their colour range with hot reds, vivid yellows and lively greens, most buyers prefer their cars in a safer shade.”
Silver is the current in-colour and, although it’s not long since experts were predicting that a glut of silver cars on the market would bring values down,Parkers experts now reckon that they could fetch hundreds of pounds more than cars painted in trendy or dull colours.

“Even the police are at it, “adds Rose, “the traditional jam-sandwich look has been replaced by silver with day-glo transfers.”
And he explains: “The motor industry loves safe colours. They’re easier to resell and therefore worth more than in your – facehues. Everyone wants an Audi in silver: it says I’m businesslike, self confident and a success. But an A4 in yellow or light blue is too look-at- me for the traditional Audi buyer and fetches less than the same car in silver.”

Silver isn’t just the smart choice for Audi,BMW, Mercedes and newer Jaguars like the S-Type; it also lends prestige to mundane mid- market motors such as Astra/Vectra and Focus/ Mondeo; it’s cool on sportsters, too, from MGF and MX-5 right up to the Porsche 911. And the curvaceous lines of mini models such as the Toyota Yaris and Deawoo Matiz seem to wear silver better than solid colours.

Traders will bid up to pounds 400 more for a silver car in the pounds 7000-pounds 10,000 bracket, and sticker prices increase accordingly.
It’s not just that silver looks classy; it doesn’t show the dirt as much as other colours. Sober dark metallic shades of red, grey, green and blue are close behind,but tend to fetch around pounds 150250 less than silver.
Monochrome cars look tired without a weekly car wash and a good polish.

Black and white cars do have a following among buyers of sportier hatch backs and coupes,but they are not liked on medium or executive cars.
White knocks pounds 200 or so off the value of a Mondeo or Vectra. On a prestige car, it’s very bad news, no-one wants a expensive white saloon. The few that are around tend to fetch far less than dark blues and silvers.

The trade’s current ‘doom’ colours are solid dark blue and brown – worth up to pounds 500 less than acceptable solid colours such as red. Buy them only if you’re hard-up, colour-blind or just want to fade into the scenery.

And be careful about ‘lifestyle’ colours. Buyers are happy enough with Kiwi or Mango or Citrine Yellow on cheeky superminis – for the moment, at least. But try to sell a family car in a fruity flavour,and you’ll have to drop the price to shift it. And remember that ‘lifestyle’ changes as fast as haircuts or hemlines.

Steve Rose adds: “When the police force and ambulance service start to buy cars in more expensive metallic colours, you’ve got to believe it’s important. But for the canny second hand buyer not interested in colour, there’s big savings to be had on solid and less fashionable shades”.

Motor vehicle design teams chant the mantra “lighter, stiffer, recyclable, more durable” as they work with suppliers to develop the automotive materials of tomorrow. A lot of the automotive-materials work being done today sounds very futuristic, but it’s not just concept work that’s underway. In fact, most automotive supply teams already have such high-tech materials programs in process for 1998 and 1999 models.

Key to the success of such high-tech materials programs is early supplier involvement. Materials purchasing professionals constantly push for early and total supplier involvement in development projects to both speed materials development and to fully tap the extensive technical resources of materials suppliers. The challenge for suppliers is formidable: Develop new materials with advanced, “contradictory” performance specifications, at reasonable cost.

“Because we select suppliers earlier in the design phase than ever before, we now encourage all potential suppliers to make us aware of their products,” says Ronald Schuster, director of worldwide steel purchasing for General Motors Corp. “For suppliers, the benefit of working with advance vehicle design and purchasing teams is an opportunity to get business. The benefit for automakers is guaranteed future supply of higher-quality and lower-cost parts.”

Schuster of GM points out that early involvement by suppliers is important for automotive materials procurement specialists “to make sure that we know all the new products, technologies, and processes while the vehicle is being designed.” He says it is at this stage that suppliers can help remove cost from the system. “That’s where we can get the biggest bang for our buck.”

“On the commercial side, we are always looking for cost-reduction or cost-avoidance performance from suppliers,” says Mark Casey, purchasing manager for metallics at Ford Motor Co. “So, the continuous-improvement teams of design and materials engineers, buyers, and materials suppliers at the automotive-stamping plants and automotive-parts plants are working to eliminate inventories, reduce delivery leadtimes, and cut processing costs.” Many times these discussions have led to supply negotiations to test alternative or next-generation materials.

David O. Styka, senior corporate buyer of raw materials at Navistar International Transportation Corp., notes that raw material strategic-supplier relationships now include quality, competitive cost, supplier technology, cost take-out opportunities, just-in-time delivery, and technical support to manufacturing and engineering.

Better materials

Motor vehicles are made from a wide variety of materials: steel, iron, aluminum, plastics, glass, copper, powder metals, lead, zinc, magnesium, nickel, platinum, palladium, fabrics, and leather. According to various industry studies, the way these materials are being sourced today is not the way they will be in the future.

Market researchers tend to cluster steel, aluminum, magnesium, plastics, powder metals, and ceramics as “advanced automotive materials,” because these are (or may be) key production materials and because all of them are progressing in quality-improvement, weight-reduction, recycling-enhancement, and cost-reduction efforts. “The main competitive issue for suppliers of these materials will be their ability to meet the automakers’ demands on such issues as price, weight, recycling, quietness, and safety,” suggests automotive analyst Inge Matthey at the Frost & Sullivan market research organization.

In fact, automotive design and purchasing groups are looking for dramatic changes in supply from the top three tiers of suppliers, says Frost & Sullivan automotive analyst Joerg Dittmer. He explains that manufacturing engineers are investigating new technologies to improve materials preparation, intermediate processing and final assembly, and to reduce total costs. So, Dittmer continues, “materials engineers and buyers are investigating how to get suppliers more involved in materials selection, tooling, and assembly.”

Thus, the roles of the top three tiers will change dramatically, says a recent study by the A.T. Kearney & Co. consulting firm in conjunction with the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). The study forecasts that in less than a decade, tier-one suppliers will be systems integrators–engineering and providing modules or systems of parts and components to assemblers. The second tier will consist of direct suppliers–providing materials, parts, and components directly to assemblers, bypassing the tier-one firms. Tier-three suppliers will be indirect suppliers of parts to the tier-ones and twos.

“This redistribution of responsibilities will occur as the automakers shift materials and design engineering responsibilities to the tier-ones, who, in turn, will give tier-twos and threes much greater duties in design and development,” says David Cole, head of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at UMTRI.

“We’re pretty excited about the way we already are working together internally and with our materials suppliers on next-generation vehicles,” says Casey of Ford. “We’ve got people from the various metals and plastics companies sitting side-by-side with our design and manufacturing engineers and purchasing personnel so they can help us optimize the efficiency, weight, and performance of the vehicles of the future.”

Casey adds that “the materials that walk off with the prize of expanded supply are going to be those whose suppliers will provide us with production and component materials that are best for the ultimate customer.” The reasoning is simple: “We are looking to source the materials of the future that will provide the automotive buyer with a better product, whether it’s a steel, aluminum, or plastic vehicle.” And, he adds, it doesn’t matter if the material comes from the producing mill, processing or distribution center, tier-one parts supplier, or tier-two or tier-three components provider.

Mitch Marecki, senior purchasing agent for raw materials at Chrysler Corp., points out that production-materials suppliers definitely have embraced early-supplier involvement efforts. “They’re all very aggressive, whether we’re talking about aluminum suppliers, steel suppliers, magnesium suppliers, or plastics and composites suppliers.” He says that “materials suppliers, as a group, have really got their thinking caps on, and they are aggressively working with engineers and buyers to present new ideas to enhance and expand the supply of their product in the future.”

Ford already is using programs called “material-utilization seminars,” where design and manufacturing engineers come up with ideas, bounce them off the commercial people for marketability, and bounce them off the purchasing people for availability. At this point, the suppliers and potential suppliers are involved to determine what it will take to make these materials available and economical. “It’s a combination of fresh ideas, and the people who make the materials are deeply involved right from the early discussion phases,” explains Casey. And it’s not happening just at Ford.

In fact, all of the automakers are involved in early-supplier programs that involve materials, either through the Auto/Steel Partnership, the new Auto/Aluminum Partnership, the Michigan Materials and Processing Institute’s polymer composites program, the Partnership for the New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) program, or numerous other industry and academia-sponsored research efforts.

It’s estimated that as much as 70% of the total cost of an automotive material is driven by design. So, only 30% of potential cost savings can be achieved after all the parts and manufacturing equipment have been designed. According to Peter Beardmore, director of Ford’s Chemical and Physical Sciences Laboratory in Dear born, Mich., the “real challenge for alternate materials is affordability.” The Big Three automakers already are building concept cars to test various future powertrain, driveline, and materials concepts, and these test cars are loaded with substitute materials. “The key question isn’t whether these materials will be available,” says Beardmore, “but whether they’ll be affordable in 2004 and beyond.”

Buyer-supplier discussions on future materials also now include recycling, a factor that’s gained importance in recent years. Vehicles are regularly being designed with recycled materials. “Due to stricter government laws and growing consumer concerns, auto manufacturers are still searching for more recyclable materials,” says analyst Dittiner at Frost & Sullivan.

“To be easy to recycle, these materials must be relatively free of adhesives, coatings and paints, easy to disassemble for sorting, recyclable into other components, and recyclable many times,” Dittmer adds. Aluminum and steel are among the most recyclable materials because they can be recycled repeatedly without losing their properties.

Short-term benefits abound

Many of the new parts going into 1998 and 1999 motor vehicles have come about because of buyer-supplier discussions about improving existing materials or providing new materials for 2003 and 2004 models.

New generations of high-strength, high-performance steels are becoming more important in vehicle frames, while two-sided galvanized sheet is used for more of the body, new vibration-damping metal-plastic-metal sandwich composites are growing in use, and stainless steel exhaust systems now are in many new cars.

Despite all the research and development in alternative materials, steel remains the “material of choice” for the automakers. The industry still ships in excess of 18 million tons/year of iron and steel for motor vehicle parts and components.

“The steel industry is being driven to `lightweight’ the metal by competing materials,” acknowledges Pete Peterson, director of automotive marketing for U.S. Steel. He adds, however, that “while reducing weight of future cars is an important issue, so are cost, quality, safety, recyclability, and manufacturability. It’s the entire package of needs that iron and steel–materials familiar to automotive engineers and buyers–continue to address.”

According to purchasing exec, Casey, at Ford, “important recent trends relating to ferrous materials have been the improvement in product quality and service on the part of steel suppliers, particularly in the introduction of more flexible chemistries, flatter sheet, better coatings, effective just-in-time delivery systems, and reduced total costs.”

Looking ahead, early this year steelmakers will exhibit the first body-in-white under the global Ulsab (ultra light steel auto body) program. Ed Opbroek, program director for Ulsab, points out that through the combination of the design and application of high-strength steels and the latest state-of-the-art processes, “we’re getting a significant weight reduction and a cost savings at the same time. Also, we’re working to meet advanced safety criteria, more-stringent crash tests, and ultrahigh-performance for torsional and bending stiffness.”

Plastics are gaining

Polymers also are part of the advanced materials of the future, and about 3 billion lb/year already are used today. Plastics and composites have become increasingly popular materials; they comprise about 9% of a typical sedan’s body weight. There is widespread use in fenders, doors, and body panels of GM’s Saturn, the hood of the Taurus SHO, and the bed liner of the Ranger pickup truck. Late in 1999, Saturn will bring out an all new car that’s bigger than any of its existing models; it will feature a plastic-intensive body. And Chevrolet’s early-supplier-involvement program resulted in Ashland Chemical’s Specialty Polymers and Adhesives Division supplying both sheet molding compound (SMC) for the body panel material and the necessary adhesives for the new Corvette C5.

However, these large-volume uses are the exception rather than the rule. Plastics and composites still take only 250 lb of a typical 2,900-lb sedan. Suppliers have had more luck in replacing metals in parts such as leaf springs, fuel systems, engine components, and interior parts, according to materials-application research done by Adam C. Powell, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He contends the replacements usually are centered around weight savings and fuel economy, although corrosion resistance is of importance in fuel systems and exterior panels, and design flexibility is the key to use in leaf springs.

Plastics indeed have drawbacks in that inexpensive plastics are considerably weaker than traditional materials, Powell says, and composites that are stronger are much more expensive. In addition, the mechanical properties of some plastics and composites make them difficult to use on existing tooling and assembly equipment. Slower-than-normal parts-molding rates associated with plastics pose a “big manufacturing challenge,” according to Bearmore of Ford.

However, Dave Hearn, manager of sales and technical services at Ashland Chemical’s polymers unit, says that “there are never-ending programs within the plastics industry to upgrade production materials, and there is the flexibility to design polymers for specific applications that will become more economical to produce once consumption levels are determined by the automakers.”

Sheet molding compound (SMC) plastics are a good example. Ashland now supplies Paccar with seven different sheet molded plastics for the truckmaker’s new composite-intensive truck cab. In fact, industry estimates suggest that 2.2 million lb of new SMC body panel and under-hood applications are being introduced in 1998 models. Dow Chemical is supplying an ABS resin for the molded consoles in the latest Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator models. DuPont has a PET (polyethylene terephthalate) grade used in the fenders of Chrysler LH vehicles and a glass-reinforced nylon 6,6 used to make air intake manifold valve covers for the Nissan Sentra. Atop that, Montell North America is providing a specially blended polypropylene for the bumper fascia on the 1998 Ford Windstar minivan.

Further ahead, GE Plastics is working on more advanced door module concepts with the automotive supply teams and some tier-one suppliers for motor vehicles to be built after 2000. John Madej, industry manager for inner door systems at GE Plastics, says the objective is to develop a completely modularized plastic door. The company also is working with the automakers to find tier-one suppliers willing to develop integrated air and fuel handling systems made from engineering resins. Robert Nelson, industry manager for instrument panels, says Project 2000 discussions involve the integration of such plastic parts as fuel rails, throttle bodies, air flow meters, air cleaners, connectors, and sensors with the air manifold.

Also note that plastics producers are working with Chrysler design and materials engineers on the CCV, the Concept Composite Vehicle. GE Plastics and others are providing the PET thermoplastics for the body panels, which are being bonded with adhesives from Eastman Chemical.

Then come the light metals

Aluminum suppliers continue to push for uses beyond wheels. Alcoa’s Automotive Structures International Div. worked with GM to provide reinforced floor panel extrusions for the EV1 electric vehicle, which is being covered with sheet stock from Alcan Aluminum. Several finns have provided die-cast aluminum alloys to replace cast iron and steel parts in engine blocks, undercarriage crossmembers, suspension system control arms, steering knuckles, and brake components.

Still, although more than 5 billion lb/year of aluminum are used in transportation, automotive uses lag behind aviation, aerospace, truck, trailer, and other segments of the transportation industry. The aluminum industry has been slow in developing an Auto/Aluminum Partnership to lobby for more se in exterior-exposed panels. Marketing efforts have been part-by-part on a supplier-by-supplier basis, unlike the steel industry’s “early supplier consortium” efforts.

Materials scientists and metallurgists at GM, Ford, and Chrysler say they would like to use more stamped aluminum sheet for exteriors. But as John Stiles, executive director for worldwide metallic purchasing at GM, puts it: “If the aluminum-sheet producers really want to be competitive with steel sheet, they will have to find ways to reduce their prices, and to reduce them substantially.” Automotive industry decision-makers remain unconvinced that the general buying public will pay more for cars and trucks with hoods, trunks, and body panels made from this lightweight material. Note that the transplants use less sheet aluminum in their vehicles on average than any of the Big Three.

Dr. Murray of the PNGV program notes that automotive grades of flat-rolled aluminum currently are priced four to five times higher than steel on a per-pound basis. “We may be charged $1.50 to $1.60 a pound for the aluminum we’re thinking about using, whereas the steel for the same application costs only 34 to 36 cents a pound,” Murray says. “We might be willing to continue paying the penalty to get the weight-reduction, corrosion-resistance and other advantages from using aluminum in specific parts such as a hood or deck lid on a car, but not for high-volume broad-scale applications of the kind traditionally served by steel.”

None of the transplant automakers surveyed plan to put aluminum hoods or deck lids on any of their vehicles in the foreseeable future. However, the Big Three will use aluminum sheet in some relatively high-priced 1999 models. Ford’s new Lincoln LS6 and LS8 sedans will have aluminum fenders, deck lids, and hoods. GM’s redesigned six-passenger Buick LeSabre and Pontiac Bonneville models–along with the new Oldsmobile Anthem–are expected to have aluminum hoods. And, the new Chrysler LHS cars are scheduled to use aluminum hoods.

While aluminum has sputtered somewhat, the slack in light metals has been picked up by magnesium, particularly in engine components, steering-column supports, and seat components where stiffness is important. This is because magnesium alloys are extremely light and very stiff. Most new automotive applications for magnesium have been as replacements for steel, iron, aluminum, and even some plastics. Now, Ford and General Motors materials-sourcing teams report they are working with die-castings suppliers to investigate the use of magnesium-based components for powertrains.

Right now, all transmission cases used in Ford’s cars, sports utility vehicles, vans, and pickup trucks are aluminum. Ford design and purchasing teams are looking at transmission extensions and clutch housings, engine oil pans, and other powertrain components as possible applications for magnesium casting alloys. High-volume production applications involving any of these powertrain components is unlikely for several years.

Meanwhile, GM is interested in using magnesium for more transmission and engine components. The largest automaker has done a substantial amount of research, development, and testing on such components in recent years to see how they perform under the higher temperatures and stresses associated with modem powertrains. GM also would like independent die casters to develop capabilities for making magnesium powertrain parts other than the usual valve covers, accessory mounting brackets, and oil filter adapters.

After months of discussions with key materials suppliers, General Motors has decided to apply “global enterprise pricing” to the iron, steel, aluminum, die-cast aluminum alloy, and powder metal components it buys. Curtis Harrison, purchasing director for GM’s Powertrain Group in Pontiac, Mich., says the global pricing policy could have a significant filter-down effect onto tier-two and tier-three suppliers as well. That’s because GM-Powertrain annually uses at least one million tons of iron parts; 180,000 tons of components forged and/or machined from steel; around 900 million lb of cast aluminum parts; and more than 130 million lb of powder metal compactions and forgings.

Under GM’s global enterprise pricing process, manufacturers of components used in the automaker’s engines, transmissions, and related subassemblies are asked to charge the same for parts made for GM’s use in one part of the world as they do in another. “No matter where the parts go, they should carry the same price,” Harrison says.

Interaction with tier-one suppliers during the policy’s development has been critical, he says, because the locations, metal volume needs, and delivery requirements of tier-one manufacturers play an important role in determining their metal suppliers. Also, when manufacturers find it difficult to make a profit on parts they sell to GM in certain regions of the world, they are likely to put pressure on their material suppliers to reduce prices.

Motor vehicle design teams chant the mantra “lighter, stiffer, recyclable, more durable” as they work with suppliers to develop the automotive materials of tomorrow. A lot of the automotive-materials work being done today sounds very futuristic, but it’s not just concept work that’s underway. In fact, most automotive supply teams already have such high-tech materials programs in process for 1998 and 1999 models.

Key to the success of such high-tech materials programs is early supplier involvement. Materials purchasing professionals constantly push for early and total supplier involvement in development projects to both speed materials development and to fully tap the extensive technical resources of materials suppliers. The challenge for suppliers is formidable: Develop new materials with advanced, “contradictory” performance specifications, at reasonable cost.

“Because we select suppliers earlier in the design phase than ever before, we now encourage all potential suppliers to make us aware of their products,” says Ronald Schuster, director of worldwide steel purchasing for General Motors Corp. “For suppliers, the benefit of working with advance vehicle design and purchasing teams is an opportunity to get business. The benefit for automakers is guaranteed future supply of higher-quality and lower-cost parts.”

Schuster of GM points out that early involvement by suppliers is important for automotive materials procurement specialists “to make sure that we know all the new products, technologies, and processes while the vehicle is being designed.” He says it is at this stage that suppliers can help remove cost from the system. “That’s where we can get the biggest bang for our buck.”

“On the commercial side, we are always looking for cost-reduction or cost-avoidance performance from suppliers,” says Mark Casey, purchasing manager for metallics at Ford Motor Co. “So, the continuous-improvement teams of design and materials engineers, buyers, and materials suppliers at the automotive-stamping plants and automotive-parts plants are working to eliminate inventories, reduce delivery leadtimes, and cut processing costs.” Many times these discussions have led to supply negotiations to test alternative or next-generation materials.

David O. Styka, senior corporate buyer of raw materials at Navistar International Transportation Corp., notes that raw material strategic-supplier relationships now include quality, competitive cost, supplier technology, cost take-out opportunities, just-in-time delivery, and technical support to manufacturing and engineering.

Better materials

Motor vehicles are made from a wide variety of materials: steel, iron, aluminum, plastics, glass, copper, powder metals, lead, zinc, magnesium, nickel, platinum, palladium, fabrics, and leather. According to various industry studies, the way these materials are being sourced today is not the way they will be in the future.

Market researchers tend to cluster steel, aluminum, magnesium, plastics, powder metals, and ceramics as “advanced automotive materials,” because these are (or may be) key production materials and because all of them are progressing in quality-improvement, weight-reduction, recycling-enhancement, and cost-reduction efforts. “The main competitive issue for suppliers of these materials will be their ability to meet the automakers’ demands on such issues as price, weight, recycling, quietness, and safety,” suggests automotive analyst Inge Matthey at the Frost & Sullivan market research organization.

In fact, automotive design and purchasing groups are looking for dramatic changes in supply from the top three tiers of suppliers, says Frost & Sullivan automotive analyst Joerg Dittmer. He explains that manufacturing engineers are investigating new technologies to improve materials preparation, intermediate processing and final assembly, and to reduce total costs. So, Dittmer continues, “materials engineers and buyers are investigating how to get suppliers more involved in materials selection, tooling, and assembly.”

Thus, the roles of the top three tiers will change dramatically, says a recent study by the A.T. Kearney & Co. consulting firm in conjunction with the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). The study forecasts that in less than a decade, tier-one suppliers will be systems integrators–engineering and providing modules or systems of parts and components to assemblers. The second tier will consist of direct suppliers–providing materials, parts, and components directly to assemblers, bypassing the tier-one firms. Tier-three suppliers will be indirect suppliers of parts to the tier-ones and twos.

“This redistribution of responsibilities will occur as the automakers shift materials and design engineering responsibilities to the tier-ones, who, in turn, will give tier-twos and threes much greater duties in design and development,” says David Cole, head of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at UMTRI.

“We’re pretty excited about the way we already are working together internally and with our materials suppliers on next-generation vehicles,” says Casey of Ford. “We’ve got people from the various metals and plastics companies sitting side-by-side with our design and manufacturing engineers and purchasing personnel so they can help us optimize the efficiency, weight, and performance of the vehicles of the future.”

Casey adds that “the materials that walk off with the prize of expanded supply are going to be those whose suppliers will provide us with production and component materials that are best for the ultimate customer.” The reasoning is simple: “We are looking to source the materials of the future that will provide the automotive buyer with a better product, whether it’s a steel, aluminum, or plastic vehicle.” And, he adds, it doesn’t matter if the material comes from the producing mill, processing or distribution center, tier-one parts supplier, or tier-two or tier-three components provider.

Mitch Marecki, senior purchasing agent for raw materials at Chrysler Corp., points out that production-materials suppliers definitely have embraced early-supplier involvement efforts. “They’re all very aggressive, whether we’re talking about aluminum suppliers, steel suppliers, magnesium suppliers, or plastics and composites suppliers.” He says that “materials suppliers, as a group, have really got their thinking caps on, and they are aggressively working with engineers and buyers to present new ideas to enhance and expand the supply of their product in the future.”

Ford already is using programs called “material-utilization seminars,” where design and manufacturing engineers come up with ideas, bounce them off the commercial people for marketability, and bounce them off the purchasing people for availability. At this point, the suppliers and potential suppliers are involved to determine what it will take to make these materials available and economical. “It’s a combination of fresh ideas, and the people who make the materials are deeply involved right from the early discussion phases,” explains Casey. And it’s not happening just at Ford.

In fact, all of the automakers are involved in early-supplier programs that involve materials, either through the Auto/Steel Partnership, the new Auto/Aluminum Partnership, the Michigan Materials and Processing Institute’s polymer composites program, the Partnership for the New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) program, or numerous other industry and academia-sponsored research efforts.

It’s estimated that as much as 70% of the total cost of an automotive material is driven by design. So, only 30% of potential cost savings can be achieved after all the parts and manufacturing equipment have been designed. According to Peter Beardmore, director of Ford’s Chemical and Physical Sciences Laboratory in Dear born, Mich., the “real challenge for alternate materials is affordability.” The Big Three automakers already are building concept cars to test various future powertrain, driveline, and materials concepts, and these test cars are loaded with substitute materials. “The key question isn’t whether these materials will be available,” says Beardmore, “but whether they’ll be affordable in 2004 and beyond.”

Buyer-supplier discussions on future materials also now include recycling, a factor that’s gained importance in recent years. Vehicles are regularly being designed with recycled materials. “Due to stricter government laws and growing consumer concerns, auto manufacturers are still searching for more recyclable materials,” says analyst Dittiner at Frost & Sullivan.

“To be easy to recycle, these materials must be relatively free of adhesives, coatings and paints, easy to disassemble for sorting, recyclable into other components, and recyclable many times,” Dittmer adds. Aluminum and steel are among the most recyclable materials because they can be recycled repeatedly without losing their properties.

Short-term benefits abound

Many of the new parts going into 1998 and 1999 motor vehicles have come about because of buyer-supplier discussions about improving existing materials or providing new materials for 2003 and 2004 models.

New generations of high-strength, high-performance steels are becoming more important in vehicle frames, while two-sided galvanized sheet is used for more of the body, new vibration-damping metal-plastic-metal sandwich composites are growing in use, and stainless steel exhaust systems now are in many new cars.

Despite all the research and development in alternative materials, steel remains the “material of choice” for the automakers. The industry still ships in excess of 18 million tons/year of iron and steel for motor vehicle parts and components.

“The steel industry is being driven to `lightweight’ the metal by competing materials,” acknowledges Pete Peterson, director of automotive marketing for U.S. Steel. He adds, however, that “while reducing weight of future cars is an important issue, so are cost, quality, safety, recyclability, and manufacturability. It’s the entire package of needs that iron and steel–materials familiar to automotive engineers and buyers–continue to address.”

According to purchasing exec, Casey, at Ford, “important recent trends relating to ferrous materials have been the improvement in product quality and service on the part of steel suppliers, particularly in the introduction of more flexible chemistries, flatter sheet, better coatings, effective just-in-time delivery systems, and reduced total costs.”

Looking ahead, early this year steelmakers will exhibit the first body-in-white under the global Ulsab (ultra light steel auto body) program. Ed Opbroek, program director for Ulsab, points out that through the combination of the design and application of high-strength steels and the latest state-of-the-art processes, “we’re getting a significant weight reduction and a cost savings at the same time. Also, we’re working to meet advanced safety criteria, more-stringent crash tests, and ultrahigh-performance for torsional and bending stiffness.”

Plastics are gaining

Polymers also are part of the advanced materials of the future, and about 3 billion lb/year already are used today. Plastics and composites have become increasingly popular materials; they comprise about 9% of a typical sedan’s body weight. There is widespread use in fenders, doors, and body panels of GM’s Saturn, the hood of the Taurus SHO, and the bed liner of the Ranger pickup truck. Late in 1999, Saturn will bring out an all new car that’s bigger than any of its existing models; it will feature a plastic-intensive body. And Chevrolet’s early-supplier-involvement program resulted in Ashland Chemical’s Specialty Polymers and Adhesives Division supplying both sheet molding compound (SMC) for the body panel material and the necessary adhesives for the new Corvette C5.

However, these large-volume uses are the exception rather than the rule. Plastics and composites still take only 250 lb of a typical 2,900-lb sedan. Suppliers have had more luck in replacing metals in parts such as leaf springs, fuel systems, engine components, and interior parts, according to materials-application research done by Adam C. Powell, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He contends the replacements usually are centered around weight savings and fuel economy, although corrosion resistance is of importance in fuel systems and exterior panels, and design flexibility is the key to use in leaf springs.

Plastics indeed have drawbacks in that inexpensive plastics are considerably weaker than traditional materials, Powell says, and composites that are stronger are much more expensive. In addition, the mechanical properties of some plastics and composites make them difficult to use on existing tooling and assembly equipment. Slower-than-normal parts-molding rates associated with plastics pose a “big manufacturing challenge,” according to Bearmore of Ford.

However, Dave Hearn, manager of sales and technical services at Ashland Chemical’s polymers unit, says that “there are never-ending programs within the plastics industry to upgrade production materials, and there is the flexibility to design polymers for specific applications that will become more economical to produce once consumption levels are determined by the automakers.”

Sheet molding compound (SMC) plastics are a good example. Ashland now supplies Paccar with seven different sheet molded plastics for the truckmaker’s new composite-intensive truck cab. In fact, industry estimates suggest that 2.2 million lb of new SMC body panel and under-hood applications are being introduced in 1998 models. Dow Chemical is supplying an ABS resin for the molded consoles in the latest Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator models. DuPont has a PET (polyethylene terephthalate) grade used in the fenders of Chrysler LH vehicles and a glass-reinforced nylon 6,6 used to make air intake manifold valve covers for the Nissan Sentra. Atop that, Montell North America is providing a specially blended polypropylene for the bumper fascia on the 1998 Ford Windstar minivan.

Further ahead, GE Plastics is working on more advanced door module concepts with the automotive supply teams and some tier-one suppliers for motor vehicles to be built after 2000. John Madej, industry manager for inner door systems at GE Plastics, says the objective is to develop a completely modularized plastic door. The company also is working with the automakers to find tier-one suppliers willing to develop integrated air and fuel handling systems made from engineering resins. Robert Nelson, industry manager for instrument panels, says Project 2000 discussions involve the integration of such plastic parts as fuel rails, throttle bodies, air flow meters, air cleaners, connectors, and sensors with the air manifold.

Also note that plastics producers are working with Chrysler design and materials engineers on the CCV, the Concept Composite Vehicle. GE Plastics and others are providing the PET thermoplastics for the body panels, which are being bonded with adhesives from Eastman Chemical.

Then come the light metals

Aluminum suppliers continue to push for uses beyond wheels. Alcoa’s Automotive Structures International Div. worked with GM to provide reinforced floor panel extrusions for the EV1 electric vehicle, which is being covered with sheet stock from Alcan Aluminum. Several finns have provided die-cast aluminum alloys to replace cast iron and steel parts in engine blocks, undercarriage crossmembers, suspension system control arms, steering knuckles, and brake components.

Still, although more than 5 billion lb/year of aluminum are used in transportation, automotive uses lag behind aviation, aerospace, truck, trailer, and other segments of the transportation industry. The aluminum industry has been slow in developing an Auto/Aluminum Partnership to lobby for more se in exterior-exposed panels. Marketing efforts have been part-by-part on a supplier-by-supplier basis, unlike the steel industry’s “early supplier consortium” efforts.

Materials scientists and metallurgists at GM, Ford, and Chrysler say they would like to use more stamped aluminum sheet for exteriors. But as John Stiles, executive director for worldwide metallic purchasing at GM, puts it: “If the aluminum-sheet producers really want to be competitive with steel sheet, they will have to find ways to reduce their prices, and to reduce them substantially.” Automotive industry decision-makers remain unconvinced that the general buying public will pay more for cars and trucks with hoods, trunks, and body panels made from this lightweight material. Note that the transplants use less sheet aluminum in their vehicles on average than any of the Big Three.

Dr. Murray of the PNGV program notes that automotive grades of flat-rolled aluminum currently are priced four to five times higher than steel on a per-pound basis. “We may be charged $1.50 to $1.60 a pound for the aluminum we’re thinking about using, whereas the steel for the same application costs only 34 to 36 cents a pound,” Murray says. “We might be willing to continue paying the penalty to get the weight-reduction, corrosion-resistance and other advantages from using aluminum in specific parts such as a hood or deck lid on a car, but not for high-volume broad-scale applications of the kind traditionally served by steel.”

None of the transplant automakers surveyed plan to put aluminum hoods or deck lids on any of their vehicles in the foreseeable future. However, the Big Three will use aluminum sheet in some relatively high-priced 1999 models. Ford’s new Lincoln LS6 and LS8 sedans will have aluminum fenders, deck lids, and hoods. GM’s redesigned six-passenger Buick LeSabre and Pontiac Bonneville models–along with the new Oldsmobile Anthem – are expected to have aluminum hoods. And, the new Chrysler LHS cars are scheduled to use aluminum hoods.

While aluminum has sputtered somewhat, the slack in light metals has been picked up by magnesium, particularly in engine components, steering-column supports, and seat components where stiffness is important. This is because magnesium alloys are extremely light and very stiff. Most new automotive applications for magnesium have been as replacements for steel, iron, aluminum, and even some plastics. Now, Ford and General Motors materials-sourcing teams report they are working with die-castings suppliers to investigate the use of magnesium-based components for powertrains.

Right now, all transmission cases used in Ford’s cars, sports utility vehicles, vans, and pickup trucks are aluminum. Ford design and purchasing teams are looking at transmission extensions and clutch housings, engine oil pans, and other powertrain components as possible applications for magnesium casting alloys. High-volume production applications involving any of these powertrain components is unlikely for several years.

Meanwhile, GM is interested in using magnesium for more transmission and engine components. The largest automaker has done a substantial amount of research, development, and testing on such components in recent years to see how they perform under the higher temperatures and stresses associated with modem powertrains. GM also would like independent die casters to develop capabilities for making magnesium powertrain parts other than the usual valve covers, accessory mounting brackets, and oil filter adapters.

Of course, tires appear much the same as always. They’re round.
Changes in cars have been obvious; they’ve gotten sleeker and more aerodynamic. But tire advances are barely perceptible because they don’t much alter a tire’s appearance.
However, cars are becoming so advanced they need tires much different in design and construction from those made even five years ago.

“It’s reached the point where General Motors designed its current Corvette and new Cadillac Allante sports cars in collaboration with Goodyear, which developed special tires exclusively for those autos,” said Robert Mercer, Goodyear’s chairman and chief executive officer.
Not long ago, automakers designed cars, then just installed the latest tires.
Akron is the world’s tire capital. Besides Goodyear, all the major U.S. tiremakers are headquartered here – Firestone, Uniroyal-Goodrich and General Tire.

All are near each other. To reach them, one drives up Market Street past the bizarre Tangier Restaurant and Art Deco exterior of the Diamond Grille restaurant, nationally known for steaks, to the revitalized but still languid downtown Akron area.
Then one cranks the steering wheel one way or the other, and within minutes is at one of the tire company headquarters.

Goodyear’s headquarters are the most imposing, as is its nearby Akron test track and Technical Center.
The Tech Center is a revamped old brick tire plant. It’s been converted under the direction of Fred Kovac, Goodyear’s vice president-tire technology, to a computer-filled facility that has artificial noise pumped in.
“Without that noise, it’s literally too quiet in here to work,” said Kovac, pointing to modern art that fills the building’s halls.
Kovac emphasized the art is from Midwestern artists. “There’s no need to buy it elsewhere,” he said.

Like GM and Ford, Goodyear always has been a solid Midwest-based company.
Kovac is an avid art lover, but it was clear he’s most fascinated by modern technology as it applies to building advanced tires.
“Tire design work, once a `black art’ done by trial and error, now is performed with computers,” he said. “We can engineer, build and test tires on computers … simulate what will happen to them without putting them on a road. Prototype tires are made only for final verification on the road.”

Few tires are made in Akron. Thousands of Southern men once boarded buses for Akron to work in Goodyear tire building plants. Goodyear even built comfortable homes for them in a hilly area overlooking company headquarters.
Most Goodyear tires now are made in the South and in countries throughout the world.
Akron is clean, and no longer smells from tire construction. The area is full of money from tire executives, although tiremakers, like U.S. companies in other fields, are slashing operations to remain world competitive.

Goodyear remains the most powerful tiremaker, despite a recent emotionally charged and costly fight with Sir James Goldsmith, a foreign corporate raider who wanted to buy the company. Tire experts say Goldsmith probably would have crippled it by selling key subsidiaries.
Because of the takeover attempt, Goodyear has been forced to cut its size 12 percent and undergo drastic restructuring. It had to sell its profitable aerospace, auto wheel manufacturing and oil industry divisions, and it has instituted internal cost cutbacks.
“It might take three years to recover,” the 63-year-old Mercer said in his thickly carpeted, wood-paneled office that looks as one might expect an old-line Akron tire executive’s office to look.

“We intend to stay tire leader, although we’re cutting research and development expenditures to concentrate on projects that’ll impact the market within a short time frame,” Mercer said.
`As we return to more normal operations, we expect to renew longer research and development to maintain our competitive edge up to 10 years from now.”
Goodyear’s fight with Goldsmith wasn’t much noticed outside the financial pages. But it was considered a life-death struggle in Akron, where Goodyear has been king since founded here in 1898.
Its battle won, Goodyear remains the General Motors of the tire business and plans lots of tire surprises for motorists.
Thursday: Mercer’s Corvettes, Ferrari’s Goodyear tires and racing’s heavy influence on regular auto tires.

The most primal part of the art of driving is what you hold in the palm of your hand: the stick. It’s no accident that hardcore auto enthusiasts are called gearheads. The shift gate is the way to a car’s soul; the stick throbs with the heartbeat of the engine. Forget its energy savings, forget the inevitable Freudianisms: In a fine gearbox, there is nothing less than music. You drive by ear as much as by hand.

I have heat-hazed memories of my first stick–a landlord-green Plymouth Belvedere with three on the tree in which, one summer, I stuttered and stalled across the Carolina Piedmont. The stick is human because it’s harder. It keeps reminding you of your fallibility; many a Nascar driver has lost a race when he missed a shift.

But hold on to your knob, because transmissions are about to change radically. With urban traffic at a crawl, the U. S. market for sticks, always small, has continued to shrink. It’s no fun to pump a clutch through a two-mile-long, two-mile-per-hour backup on the Gowanus Expressway. And soon you won’t have to choose between the craft of a manual and the ease of an automatic.

An early bid comes from Porsche: the Tiptronic S, which can shift between manual and auto. In manual mode, you shift by means of buttons on the steering wheel, just as in Formula One race cars. The Tiptronic would face more resistance among gearheads had it not come from engineers with the credentials of Porsche’s The 911 already offers a four-speed Tip, but the new five-speed version in the Boxster and in the forthcoming new 911 is a much-improved animal. Now Audi, too, whose new models reflect increasingly clever design and engineering, has licensed Tiptronic as the automatic option in the ‘98 A4 and in the new, larger A6, out next month.

The Tip’s chip reads a number of factors–throttle pressure, braking, and grade foremost among them–to adapt its shift points, reading the driver almost the way the driver used to read the road. It’s even integrated with traction control, responding to any spin or slip.

I tested the Tip against the stick in Boxsters on the autobahn, where race -car style buttons feel right at home. It’s easy to get used to thumbing and forefingering up and down through the gears–and you have push-button passing power at your fingertips. It’s at low speeds that the Tip feels odd: Working it through villages that rise up as suddenly as Brigadoon or around farm equipment that pops up on the blind curve of a narrow lane, you miss the clutch and stick when you’re trying to get back up to speed. Your right hand feels underemployed, twitching like a new ax-smoker’s, while your clutch foot dances reflexively on the ghost pedal.

But the Tip is well suited to the American exurbs; running it around a Northeast metropolis, I relished having a hand free to communicate forcefully with other drivers. Less satisfying is another auto/manual hybrid: Chrysler’s AutoStick. Like the Tip, it slots easily from auto to manual. But you still shift on the floor, up and down, and the motion felt uncertain and plastic in the Intrepid I drove. After a while, the manual option seemed a nuisance: The engine is powerful enough, and the automatic responsive enough, that manual hardly seems worth the trouble.

It’s with smaller engines that the stick has always been most appreciated. And only smaller engines, up to now, have been able to accommodate the technology that represents the true future of transmissions. Continuously variable transmissions, or CVTs, use belts instead of gears to transmit the power of the engine to the wheels. By cutting out the middleman of gearing, they can significantly reduce fuel consumption. They’ve been around for decades in Europe and Asia, but only recently has a successful CVT gone on the market here, in the Honda Civic coupe, in which it drives like an automatic with unearthly long first and second gears.

Now Ford is claiming a major breakthrough in using CVTs,with larger engines. Its engineers put an experimental CVT in a Taurus with a six-cylinder Vulcan. In demonstrations, it pulled strongly and steadily from a stop to sixty, with none of the wavering power of some earlier CVTs or the sometimes hiccupy shifts of the standard Ford automatic.

But CVTs can feel positively weird: They have no shift points; they’re as seamless as the clothes on Star Trek. Like compact discs, however, they are the way of the future–the simpler, smoother successor to the ragged grooves of gears. And, just as we miss the tone arm and needle, we’re going to miss the stick.

Five years ago, H. A. Humpy Wheeler, the marketing whiz behind the Charlotte Motor Speedway and the new Texas Motor Speedway, created the Legends cars, flashy five-eighths-scale replicas of late-1930s hot rods. Legends racing has taken off in the heartland, with country-music stars and off-duty Nascar drivers piloting their own. Here’s Humpy’s latest notion: the Bandolero, half go-cart, half racer, a 450-pound vehicle with a screamin’ V-Twin Briggs & Stratton engine and a wacky, faux-Ferrari fiberglass body. Named after Pancho Villa’s insurgents, the Bandolero fits in a pickup-truck bed and sells for less than seven grand. Wheeler envisions a whole racing circuit built around the car. For info on where to buy and race the Bandolero, contact 600 Racing: 704-455-3896.

Highway violence is rising, gas consumption is fast approaching pre-energy-crisis levels, and Barry White is back. The time is right for Interstate ‘76, an “auto-combat simulation” computer game compounded of muscle cars, heavy weaponry, a funk soundtrack, and dudes with huge Afros. The time is an alternative version of the 19705, the place a stylized version of the American Southwest that resembles the landscape of The Road Warrior You play an “auto vigilante,” roaring down the road in a 426-horsepower machine equipped with twin M-60S, determined to save America’s remaining petroleum reserves.

You can customize the cars–which have names like Piranha and Manta–by adding new tires, nitrous oxide, and more firepower. Interstate ‘76 puts racing games in the shade. It’s also a digital depiction of the daydreams of millions of us marooned on the interstate, itching to blow away the jerk in the Camaro who just cut us off. Interstate ‘76 comes on two discs, taking up a minimum of 80 megs on your hard drive, and requires a fast Pentium. It’s $49.95 from Activision.

The Big Bang

In the evolution of the automotive industry, Charles Haddad, manager, Advanced Engineering Dept., Ford Motor Co., considers Henry Ford’s assembly line “Big Bang #1.” Between 1909 and 1923, the cost of the Model T dropped from $850 to $260, though the car was essentially unchanged.
Today’s critical need, Haddad believes, is a fundamental “single-shot” change in the car’s complete architecture-Big Bang #2. His view: While manufacturing methods and performance have thrived with consistent, evolutionary attention, sudden radical changes in the car’s basic structural and assembly concepts have been off limits. Haddad’s prescription is that the domestic car industry must reposition itself with highly efficient and more profitable products at the low-cost end of the market. He calls for a quantum change that would parallel the enormous effect of Henry Ford’s production line innovations.
According to Haddad, the tools, ingredients,” and know-how to prevail as a viable industry are available, and an abundance of ideas are lying fallow, including extensive opportunities to maximize design simplicity.

He cites, for example, the Ford Contour concept car’s flouting of tradition and its technologically aggressive integration of multiple existing disciplines. Shown in January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the Contour is a potentially cost-efficient, structurally lean, simple in design and assembly, high- or very low-volume production vehicle. Its extruded, adhesive-bonded aluminum space frame; hybrid doors of RIM polyurea (from Mobay) and extruded aluminum door structure and reinforcement beams; hook and loop fasteners (from Velcro); in-mold coating (from Mobay) or use of formed, prepainted sheets (from Avery); single transverse leaf spring suspensions; and center-take-off engine/transmission are among numerous diversions from the beaten track. These leading-edge ideas represent a more eclectic approach to technology utilization. With these concepts, Haddad is confident, new investment and plant costs could be reduced by as much as 50% to help restore competitiveness to the U.S.
The effort may not yet be the Big Bang #2 that Haddad wants, but it is more than just a firecracker.

On The Agenda

Plastics in car design continues moving ahead. More use of different plastics, in 1992 models and beyond, is on Chrysler Corp.’s agenda, say Carol Lindquist, executive engineer, Materials Engineering, and Saad Abouzahr, product development specialist. Rubber-modified polypropylene with molded-in color is a leading contender, as replacement for painted RIM fascias and ABS trim parts in some applications.
The body-in-white, E-coat paint-oven temperatures still set the pace for exterior panels on the high-volume models, to avoid secondary “hang-on” assembly steps. Any preassembled plastics for on-line painting must keep in step with the steel through the high-temperature ovens. Nevertheless, Lindquist and Abouzahr predict that between 1992 and 1994, there will be increasing replacement of sheet metal and die castings by polymers in some power transmission/engine components, body panels, and other parts in Chrysler’s high-volume cars.

Speed of delivery was a rule of thumb in the fast development of Chrysler’s all-composite V-10, 400 HP Dodge Viper. Originally unveiled as a concept performance car in 1989, the vehicle was the pace car at last spring’s Indy 500, and a production vehicle almost identical to the prototype will debut next month. Volume is expected to grow to 3000 to 5000 units per year, from a projection of 200 to 300 vehicles in the 1992 model year. Low-cost, fast-delivery epoxy and nickel-shell epoxy tooling and liquid transfer molding have kept the project on the fast track. Built around a steel chassis, all of the Viper’s exterior panels, except the compression molded polyester SMC hood, are resin transfer molded of ICI’s Modar A 24 S acrylic. The Viper features more than thirty semistructural parts made of the low viscosity acrylic composite material.
A Methodical Pattern Cafe (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) standards, based on total fleet averages, spur weight reduction for all car lines. Peter Beardmore, manager, Materials Science Dept., Research Staff, Ford Motor Co., says that this pressure makes even the larger models, such as the Grand Marquis, Continental, Town Car, and Mark VII, candidates for plastic exterior panels.

Beardmore foresees horizontal hood and deck panels, probably SMC, but even possibly aluminum, appearing on more “specialty” cars throughout the ’90s. Lower modulus, flexible SMC, with reduced glass fiber content and expansion coefficients closer to that of conventional SMC, is an evolving technology. Because of existing problems of growth and contraction in mating vertical door and fender panels, Ford is still limiting uses to pilot programs. Since the resin materials are more expensive than steel, applications still depend on the extent of parts consolidation through modular assemblies and function integration.
Beardmore predicts near-term application of structural composite components, such as cross members and bumper beams, that do not require integration into larger structures, and which will provide production experience. Pilot programs will examine replacement of larger segments of the steel structure, with emphasis on part integration. However, even given steady progress, Beardmore’s view is that structural composite replacement of steel body structures probably will not materialize during this decade.
Resin transfer molding (RTM) and SRIM are the front-running processes for large structural composite parts, but higher process automation and reproducibility are needed. The millionth part must be the same as the first one, and performance/cost must be as good or better than that of the technology it would replace. “Structural composites absorb energy differently than metals,” Beardmore says, “and a substantial time on the learning curve is needed before large leaps forward can be prudently taken. Fatigue and durability are not as much an issue as energy absorption. But significant changes are anticipated as experience is gained, and specifications for weight reduction and performance tighten.”

Consortium For Learning

To accelerate the structural composites learning process, the Composites Research Consortium was established in 1988. Its board includes two executives each from Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors (GM); the purpose of this unconventional joint venture is the equal sharing of newly acquired, precompetitive data and technology. It was the first automotive-related consortium to be set up under the guidelines of the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984, which was formulated by Congress to encourage R&D by U.S. industries.
Elio Eusebi, department head, Polymers Dept., GM Research Laboratories, this year’s chairperson, says the consortium has been unusual in its ability to break down the traditional walls of secrecy between the Big Three. Advantageous use of the cooperatively generated knowledge is a function of the private efforts of the individual companies.
The ultimate goal of the consortium (which has a 12-year legal life), is to develop the design, data, and production infrastructure for a cost-effective, all-composite production vehicle. “We may not entirely accomplish that goal in the time frame,” Eusebi says, “but that is where we are conceptually headed.”
Intercompany groups are assigned specific tasks. In materials, a test procedures manual is the first set of guidelines for composite suppliers and researchers. Providing uniform test requirements based on modified ASTM procedures, the manual primarily covers tensile, compression, and shear testing; guidelines for fatigue and creep testing are expected to be developed soon.
Development of more cost-effective, high-volume processing capabilities is a primary area. More efficient preform production is a key factor. Consortium teams are working on automated preform methods, and, in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, on flow in preforms. One group is investigating coring for lightweight hollow sections; a model, involving tooling, capital equipment, and part costs, has been developed.

In energy management, the consortium is looking at types of composite structure and the effects of interfaces between matrices and reinforcements; conducting crush tube tests; and designing crush simulation software.
On a front-end composite design for a Ford Escort, a preform’s parts were decreased from more than thirty glassfabric lay-ups to four random- and braided-glass RTM shapes. Now being assembled into a vehicle for crash testing, the redesign cuts preform production time from two days to less than five minutes.

Raising The Standard

The GM 200 APV minivan all-plastic-body program expresses GM’s commitment to plastics. Fred Kulka, system manager, Body Exterior, GM 200 Program, says that surface finish was the critical concern: “By raising the standards on exterior appearance of the SMC surfaces, we set in motion many associated factors, including changes in the SMC formulation, modifications in the low-profile additives to reduce waviness, improvements in press technology by incorporation of vacuum in the compression molding to eliminate porosity, and prodding our suppliers to get better. That was the only way the all-plastic-body APV could have made it to the production line, by a lot of engineering and manufacturing sweat.
“The growth of plastics is inevitable, because the writing is on the wall with tighter CAFE standards and the need for continued weight reduction,” Kulka continues. Beyond those pressures, plastics are now recognized for the inherent design flexibility they offer in response to changing market requirements. “GM is now comfortable with plastics for exterior panels, for example,” Kulka says. “We have moved ahead in the learning process and are not afraid to use them anymore. But changes to plastics and composites still will be measured, and there will be more hybrids than radical switches from steel.

“There are no generic answers as to whether thermoplastics or thermosets are better for vertical exterior panels. The answer must come from the particular model car, its projected production volume, the plant in which it will be built relative to specific assembly procedures, the curing temperature of the paint system, and the economical volume crossover point in comparison with steel. The unseen decision making process is very complex. In the final analysis, the material must justify itself in the performance/cost framework of the specific application.”
As designers become more sophisticated in coping with the “fit and finish” effects of thermal expansion and contraction, for example, they are becoming better able to compensate for “material growth” conditions they would have rejected a few years ago. Kulka implies that this capability could bring lower-cost materials, such as thermoplastic olefins, into the vertical panels arena, thus increasing the alternatives now available. Finally, he muses, “the steel people are not sitting on their hands, so things will continue to be interesting.”

A Leading Contender

Requirements for fit-and-finish stability, Class A surface, and mechanical properties make SMC the leading contender at Ford Motor Co., with potential for expanded use as exterior panels on production cars, according to Al Murray, manager, Advanced Technology Office, Plastic and Trim Products Division.

Ford has been conservative regarding plastic exterior panels as replacements for steel. An initial entry was the SMC hood as a running production part on the Aerostar compact van since 1986; it represents about a 30% weight saving over steel. Extending the application to the full-size 1992 Econoline van, with a similar projected annual production of more than 200,000 vehicles, is a significant expansion in the amount of SMC used and an extension of the technology. Produced in a 60-second cycle time, the Aerostar and Econoline hoods are adhesive-bonded laminates of inner and outer SMC panels. The previous need for costly and time consuming finishing has essentially been eliminated by control of formulations, and molding, priming, and bonding processes. In 1992, a full-size series F pickup truck, with flareside fenders in SMC, will be available.

Based on ongoing pilot programs, Ford plans to expand use of SMC to other car lines in the near future. The targets are basically larger luxury cars with projected volumes of less than 200,000, and where CAFE fuel efficiency standards strongly mandate weight reduction. “Other plastic materials do not yet meet our on-line painting and fit-and-finish requirements for body panels,” Murray says. “The SMC panels can survive the body-in-white electrocoats and retain the critical dimensional margins.”
Ford would prefer a more flexible and lower density material than conventional SMC for vertical body panels. Development continues on SMC formulation to retain dimensional stability, repeatability, and surface finish, while adding desired flexibility and resilience. Ford also continues to evaluate improving technology with other plastics for vertical panels.

Flow-Through Designs

Today’s car interior reflects a high degree of sophistication in use of materials, parts integration, and styling to create an atmosphere of “family room” comfort, convenience, and security. Much has already been achieved in the development of “flow-through” designs, in which the instrument panel, console, and doors blend smoothly together to provide a comfortable, highly efficient cockpit-type enclosure, notably in sporty mid-size vehicles. There is an increasing effort to respond to often subtle customer perceptions regarding ergonomics, functionality, performance, and quality. In this context, Lou Chmura, executive engineer, Product Engineering, Vehicle Interior Systems, Plastic and Trim Products Division, Ford Motor Co., says that with every new interior design, there is increased sensitivity to customer-perceived quality. This sensitivity drives the continuous emphasis on details such as fit-and-finish of contiguous parts and elimination of squeaks and rattles from mounted panels and other elements. “The current challenge,” Chmura says, “is to enhance the styling creativity we see in today’s car interiors. We expect that future car interior designs will become increasingly more coordinated, requiring implementation of a single fully integrated concept, rather than assembling a set of segmented elements. Design pressures continue to force interior components to accommodate such items as passenger-side air bags and strengthened door panels that will meet pending side-impact standards. Company acceptance standards are becoming more stringent, manifesting themselves, for example, in such things as improved panel grain matching and an even greater perception of quietness.”

Chmura does not foresee radical swings in specific material usage in the car interiors in the next few years. Relative to the structural composites, and citing the experience with the growth of plastic fuel tanks, he predicts a methodical evolutionary development as possible replacements for steel in the instrument panel structure.
Finally, Chmura emphasizes that recyclability, as a mounting environmental issue, will require much greater attention to the problem of sorting the diverse materials and assembly processes that are now used. “Design for efficient recycling is rapidly becoming one of the big issues of the day. In our company, and in the industry, serious attempts are being made to resolve these problems and to respond without adverse impact on cost and quality.”

Continuing Growth

Thermoplastic olefin (TPO) continues to grow in auto design. The major poundage is in fascias, mostly at the expense of RIM polyurethane. The material, however, is still playing catch-up with the European cars, where over 70% of front and rear fascias are made of rubber-modified polypropylene. In North America, the penetration in 1990 in fascias was about 20%. This compares with a penetration of about 4% in 1985. Other uses of TPO in 1990 was for air dams, cladding, rub strips, wheel flares, air ducts, and interior parts.

D&S International and Himont Advanced Materials, the big domestic hitters in TPO, see the material’s growth reflecting the quest for lower-cost functionality. Robert Gerlach, D&S automotive market manager, points to a new expertise in design and molding, and an expanded product range, largely resulting from enhanced compounding and compatibilizing. The range of flexural moduli, about 35,000 to 200,000 psi in 1985, has spread to 10,000 to 350,000 psi. Also, advancement from a fractional to a 10 melt index range up to a 35 melt index provides easier-flow materials that widen processing windows and retain impact properties.
D&S has developed a precolored TPO that, when covered with a PPG weatherable glossy clearcoat, has demonstrated that it does not peel off on exposure to Florida sunlight for two years. Previously, the colored fascias have been limited to dull finishes.

TPO is also trying to expand into exterior vertical and horizontal body panels. One route, Gerlach says, could be coinjection, using a TPO skin and any of a wide range of solid or foamed core materials. The degree of stiffness or resilience could be up for grabs, depending on the recipe. D&S is involved in specific proprietary “partnerships” and programs with OEMS.
John Harvey, marketing manager, Transportation, Himont Advanced Materials, credits reactor-grade TPO resins and new glass-reinforced materials for the steadily improving market share of the propylene-based materials. Himont has actively participated in a number of new programs, some recent ones being the Chevrolet Cavalier fascias, Peterbilt bumpers, Ford Sable/Taurus and Dodge Caravan claddings, Cadillac STS rocker panels, and GMC truck grilles. The company will have various applications on twelve 1992model-year American-made cars.

Foam Developments

To meet standards relating to side-impact collisions, Arco Chemical development programs with automakers include Dytherm SMA copolymer, Arpro resin, Dylite expandable polystyrene, and new urethane foam products. A new Dylark (378P20) resin, with improved long-term thermal aging, expands the material’s potential for instrument panels and trim parts, headliners, and other interior uses.

Polyester Blends

All exterior body panels on the Lotus Elan-projected annual volume of about 3000 cars-are of Ashland Chemical’s Arotran RTM resin system. Other current uses include the Chevrolet Corvette removable hardtop roof and the Ford Aeromax 120 heavy-duty truck hood. The Phase Alpha unsaturated polyester SMC resin system continues to be used for many of the body panels for GM’s line of composite-body minivans, and for the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Aerostar liftgate, and various medium- and heavy-duty truck hoods.

Three new Arotech thickenable vinyl ester resins, which balance strength and controlled shrinkage, are developed for valve covers, oil pans, structural parts, and inner reinforcements for body panels.
At its Tarrytown, N.Y, assembly plant this year, GM changed over to Pliogrip 9000 primerless structural adhesive for bonding the outer panels of the minivan to the steel space frame, eliminating the need for solvent-wipe priming.

Polyurethane Bolsters

BASF Corporation Plastic Materials is developing side-impact systems using bolsters molded of Elastoflex polyurethane foam. The relatively ductile, rigid foam does not shatter when impacted. Also under investigation is an air bag of Elastollan thermoplastic polyurethane, an Ultramid nylon steering wheel, and Elastofoam flexible polyurethane foam for the wheel’s resilient air bag cover.
In a manufacturing process developed by the Versatrim Division of Atoma International, Inc., doors for GM’s 1991 Oldsmobile 98 are delivered “just in time.” Substrates for the door panels use a specially developed rigid, reinforced BASF Elastolit SR polyurethane foam system. Another Versatrim line will make door assemblies for the 1992 Olds 88.

Blowmolded Shroud

Dow Plastics says that a 1992 GM platform is expected to utilize an instrument panel cluster shroud, with molded-in air duct, made from Pulse 880 BG blowmolding grade resin.

SMC and BMC composite valve covers of Dow’s Derakane vinyl ester resin, first seen in 1990 and 1991 models, including a range of Ford engines, are active items. More complex fascia designs that incorporate lighting and other components are on the drawing boards. Spectrim HT30 and HT55 polyurea, offering dimensional stability and mineral fillers that do not sacrifice surface appearance, are among the candidates.

Overbraided Fuel Lines

Du Pont Automotive Products’ fuel lines of Teflon PTFE fluoropolymer, overbraided with steel, are used in a number of 1992 Ford models. Air bag deployment doors of DYM 100 polyester elastomer are on at least two 1992 Ford vehicles. Nomex aramid pressboard heat shields are in three engine applications on the 1992 full-size Dodge Ram van. A prefilled clutch hydraulics system has pistons of Kevlar aramid fiber and master and slave cylinder bodies of Zytel glass-reinforced nylon. It is standard on 1992 manual shift vehicles for a North American automaker; variations of the system are on 1992 GM light duty trucks, the Dodge Viper, and Jeep Z-J. The 1992 Pontiac Bonneville SE and Pontiac SSE/SSEi feature front and rear fascias of Bexloy V and a front air dam of weatherable, high gloss Bexloy W. The new model Plymouth Laser/Mitsubishi Eclipse has a ground effects package of a reinforced low-expansion Bexloy V. A late 1992 high-volume car will use fenders of Bexloy K550. Du Pont says the material can withstand electrocoat ovens.

Now The Tough Ones

“The easy jobs are done,” says Joseph Reed, general manager, GE Plastics Automotive Team. “Further big gains in weight reduction and quality improvement must be achieved by aggressive programs, such as modular design, for example.” Reed mentions modular doors, containing exterior and inner panels and core. The key is to respond to renewed interest in weight and cost reduction.

Lightweight Pump

A new lightweight air injection pump uses Fortron PPS 4184L4, from Hoechst Celanese Corp., Engineering Plastics Division, for the housing and impellers; Vandar thermoplastic alloy 4206Z for the power distribution box’s top and bottom enclosures on some 300,000 1992 luxury sedans and pickup trucks; and Vandar thermoplastic elastomer for more than a million air bag enclosures in 1992 cars.

An experimental program aims at sound/vibration reduction with high modulus reinforced thermoplastics in suspensions. In other programs, a single-part fuel rail, injection molded of Fortron PPS, replaces eight stainless steel parts; and metal fuel tank filler necks are replaced by Celcon acetal copolymer. Bumper fascias of Vandar semirigid thermoplastic are used on several luxury models.

Static Dissipation

LNP Engineering Plastics currently is developing new Stat-Kon composite materials to dissipate static charge buildup in a fuel injection system, including fuel lines, filters, and fuel filler necks. Lower-cost Lubricomp composites for bushings and wear rings, as replacement for steel or more expensive composite materials, also are being developed.

Stable Molded Color

Among Mobay Corp.’s development efforts is a light-stable polyurethane or polyurea that would allow molded-in contrasting colors, to counter TPO’s advances mainly in the low-end market. The objective is to prevent degradation in sunlight, and thus avoid secondary painting, by building in compatible stabilizers.

Robert Kirk, business director, Polyurethane Division Automotive Group, says the industry is also working on chemical and processing technology to provide Class A SRIM horizontal body panels to compete with SMC. Experimental hoods molded of glass mat encapsulated with polyurethane look promising.

RIM polyurethane and polyurea maintained approximately a 65% share of a total fascia market in 1990 of 200 million lbs. Some new GM models are scaling up to polyurea fascias for improved stiffness, dimensional stability, and processability. Front fascias on the Firebird and Camaro F cars are being carried over from 1991 to 1992 and 1993. The Pontiac Bonneville and the Buick LeSabre H-car front and rear fascias, RIM polyurethane in late 1991 models, have been upgraded to RIM polyurea for 1992; Olds Royale fascias, formerly thermoplastic, have also been converted to RIM polyurea. Front fenders on the 1993 F cars will be changing from sheet steel to polyurea.

The Road To Discovery

The expanding capabilities and diversity of plastics, combined with the increased knowledge necessary for their use, are reflected in many significant applications in all cars. Many more are sure to come. Thus plastics are playing a major role in helping a beleaguered but dynamic automotive industry on the road to new discoveries of its potential.