Automotive Design & Production

Rtt Virtual Prototyping Solutions

Realtime Technology is changing the way suppliers and OEMs interact with CAD data through its DeltaGen visualization software, which renders 3D images of vehicles and components in real-time for review and validation. The goal is to help OEMs and suppliers reduce the number of physical prototypes required before production approval, reducing cost and improving efficiency. RTT is developing new software upgrades -- RealView2 -- to help improve virtual visualization of vehicle and component des...

Tiguan: Vw's Hybrid Suv

Volkswagen's new Tiguan is a late entrant in a hyper-competitive market segment. Renate Hamann took over as Tiguan chief engineer as the first prototypes were being built, launched the SUV into the European market late last year, and is starting development of the second generation. According to Hamann, the static and dynamic torsional rigidity of the unit body is 45 Hz, and does not change when the panoramic sunroof is ordered. The suspension kinematics were tuned to give a slight understeer...

Talk: Marginal

First-Rate Thinking

If there is a condition that is pervasive in the auto industry today, crisis is certainly a word that describes it. Whether it's at Toyota or a Tier Three supplier known only by close family members and the purchasing person at the Tier Two, crisis is the order of the day. The litany of challenges -- from rising energy and raw material costs to increasing competition from China, India, and low-wage countries that aren't on many radar screens at the moment but which will start showing up with ...

Talk: Insight

What's Your 'Engineering Intensity'?

As people work with automotive suppliers on improving their operational excellence and on their medium to long-term strategies, people have noticed that a characteristic of the more successful companies is the simple property of what could be called "high self-awareness." Companies usually have multiple viable options in terms of positioning, product line expansion, R&D projects, etc. Companies that operate at the end of the spectrum with low engineering intensity are typically doing buil...

Notable

Eight Is Enough for Zf

With a focus on improving both fuel economy and drivability, ZF will introduce a new family of 8-speed automatic transmissions -- capable of handling up to 900 Nm of torque -- in the 2010 model year. The newly developed 8-speeds will provide a 6% fuel economy benefit over existing 6-speed transmission systems, the company claims. The transmission was designed to accommodate various hybrid applications, from start/stop to full-hybridization. ZF has a production contract for the full-hybrid sol...

Ford Leans On Six Speeds

Attention to Aero Benefits '09 Ford Escape

Optimization has taken on increased importance as automakers look for ways to eke out fuel efficiency gains from existing and future vehicle programs. Ford's 2009 Escape and Mercury Mariner are proof that attention to the smallest details can provide marked benefits when it comes to MPG ratings. Besides the aero changes, the Escape and Mariner receive major upgrades to their powertrain offerings. A new base engine-2.5-liter 4-cylinder producing 171 hp at 6,000 rpm-replaces the 2.3-liter, whil...

Honda Shrinks the Minivan

Honda's new home market compact minivan may have a strange name -- "Freed," which is short for "freedom" -- but it features a low-floor/low-center of gravity concept to make it both roomy and easy to maneuver in crowded city streets. Despite an overall length of just 166 inches on a 103-inches wheelbase, the Freed can carry up to eight passengers in the three-row version. The powertrain for the Freed mates a 1.5-liter inline i-VTEC four-cylinder to a torque converter-equipped CVT transmission...

Talk: Insider

Prevent Overreaction

Overreaction can be devastating. As the global auto industry goes through what is a real fundamental change in the way it does business, its leaders must keep cool heads to assure that they don't overact to what some might declare temporary market pressures. The simple fact of the matter is that people can ill afford to have the industry begin the process of buying assets that will cause further disruption to building and engineering cars and trucks with the best fuel economy, quality and val...

Talk: Dudder

Death Row Musings

In the coming years, globalization of the product portfolio will cause Ford to pull more of its vehicles from its European operations, and adopt their size and "kinetic" design themes as its own. Utilizing common platforms that are optimized for their region and using flexible assembly methods, Ford can take existing European vehicles and place most of them with Mercury almost unchanged. Thus, Ford would get the Focus wagon, Mercury would get its sibling, the C-Max MPV. A model lineup like th...

Talk: Profiles

Scot Drake: Shaping Entertainment

He always knew from an early age that he wanted to be involved in the auto industry in some way, says Scot Drake, who spent his formative years in the pits at midget and sprint car races near his home town of Santa Clarita, CA. Fresh faced and eager to turn his talent into a career, Drake enrolled in the transportation design program at Art Center in Pasadena, penning race cars and bicycles. Shortly after switching from transportation to entertainment curricula, Drake was offered an internshi...

Talk: Euro Auto

Ceramics Build Better Bearings

There are a number of unsung heroes in the motorsport industry, those whose products are vital in keeping the cars on the track but whose presence you have to dig deep to discover. One such is German company Cerobear, a leading manufacturer of ceramic and hybrid rolling bearings, whose products are used in Formula One, Le Mans, DTM and the World Rally Championship. The company has 18 years of experience from which to draw. It was founded in 1990 in the Aachen Technology Centre by Matthias Pop...

Talk: Competitive Challenges

Do You Know Where Your Tools Are?

The author recently began to work on a new benchmarking study in the automotive industry focused on the tooling business, and opportunities that exist for manufacturers, suppliers and the industry in general as it faces increased competition from low-cost country sources, which are stealing market share but not necessarily delivering the same value of tooling. The superpowers of automotive manufacturing are spending billions of dollars on tooling each year. In a time when automotive global co...

Close Up

Shw Unispeed 5

Manufacturing throughput time has a variety of factors related to it. These include machine setup time, processing time, transport time, batch size, and resource availability. The UniSpeed 5 from Bohle Machine Tools is a universal traveling column machining center that is capable of performing five-sided machining on sizable parts, as it has an X, Y, Z work area measuring 63 x 63 x 47 in. Now the fact that this is a machine that is capable of performing multiple rotating tool operations on fi...

Feature: Bendable Body Beautiful

Bendable Body Beautiful

BMW GINA is more than a model -- a shape. It is more than about cloth. Freed of its Henrik Fisker-designed bodywork, BMW's chief of exterior design, Anders Warming, oversaw taking the GINA Light Visionary Model to full-size. Central to GINA is the idea that there is very little structure necessary to create the sculptural form between graphic elements. But this concept is about more than its man-made fabric and its ability to resist water, high and low temperatures, shrinking, and swelling. T...

Feature: Plm Gets Unified

Plm Gets Unified

Despite that most of product lifecycles management (PLM) is still focused on design engineering, the PLM footprint has lately been broadening to encompass other critical enterprise issues, such as supplier relationship management and environmental compliance. Software applications based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) promise to be open, scalable, and unified to act as a single system operating from a single source of data. SOA enables a revolutionary level of global collaboration. O...

Feature: Flex Appeal

Flex Appeal

Ford once had the enviable position of having remarkably best-selling vehicles like the pre-Five Hundred Taurus, Mustang, and the Explorer. But now it finds itself with declining numbers. Ford Flex is the first vehicle that was fully developed using the digital Ford Global Product Development Process, which not only dealt with engineering design, but also simulating the product build. The Flex is powered by a 3.5-liter V6 manufactured at the Ford Lima, OH, Engine Plant. One of the options for...

Feature: Nissan Faces The Future

Nissan Faces the Future

There is an array of vehicles that Nissan offers in various markets -- Japan, in particular -- that are significantly smaller than those that are common on American roads. With the rise in fuel prices in the US, sales of Nissan's light trucks aren't fairing well. Meanwhile, car sales are up 5%, which is an exceedingly solid showing in an overall anemic market. Consumers are asking for a solution to fuel economy. It is up to them to deliver on those kinds of responses, says Larry Dominique, VP...

Feature: Talking About Joining

Talking About Joining

Archetype Joint president Dave Archer said that joining is permanent -- as in welding -- and while fastening can be permanent, but likely to be something that can be taken apart. He points out that on vehicle interiors you'll find a number of fastening devices, from snaps to clips. They're not structure. In a structural joint, the joint needs to behave as a single part. Regardless of the type of method used, Archer says that the number-one challenge that needs to be addressed is that of struc...

Feature: Cognition: The Sixth Sense Of Safety

Cognition: The Sixth Sense of Safety

The next step in vehicle safety will combine electronic stability control and its subsystems with electric steering and chassis controls, and tie them together to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. This safety system requires intelligent integrated systems to define a 'cognitive' safety system," says Dr Alois Seewald, Global Director, R&D and Integrated and Passive Safety Technologies at TRW Automotive. completely." Seewald suggests these systems will be capable of autonomous...

Feature: Volkwagen's Plm Strategy

Volkswagen's Plm Strategy

According to Oliver Riedel, director of Progress Integration and Information Management at Volkswagen (VW), the eventual adoption of a single set of product lifecycles management (PLM) tools will enable VW to reduce overall IT spending, while boosting efficiency through the development of continuous work procedures in the product development process, along with the ability to have immediate synchronization of critical product data throughout the world. A typical VW vehicle has approximately 5...