Toray Advanced Composites and BASF signed a manufacturing and supply agreement focused on the production of continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRT) tapes for the automotive and industrial markets. Toray Advanced Composites will produce high quality and affordable CFRT tapes using Ultramid engineering thermoplastics developed and produced by BASF. The fiber... Read more →

A team of researchers has observed a new mechanism for metallic bending. The discovery not only upends previous notions about how metals deform, but could help guide the creation of stronger, more durable materials. AN open-access paper on the study is published in the journal Nature Communications. This creates new... Read more →

Henkel is partnering in a research and development project called SYMPA, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry Republic of Austria Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT). The German and Austrian project consortium aims to develop new materials, printing methodologies and post-processing technologies... Read more →

Daimler Buses has equipped its Mannheim bus plant with a central charging station for the fully-electric eCitaro. It can also be used to provide the newly released eCitaro with electricity via a pantograph. The special feature of this charging station is that the charging devices are suspended at a height... Read more →

Adamas Intelligence reports that according to the Association of China Rare Earth Industry (ACREI), China’s domestic manufacturers produced approximately 7.6 million liters of vehicle exhaust gas catalyst in the first half of 2019—a decrease of 13% year-over-year on weak passenger vehicle production. Vehicle exhaust gas catalysts comprising platinum-group metals are... Read more →

Roskill has constructed a comprehensive copper industry reference dataset covering the period 2014-2018, built upon a production, trade and consumption platform of the eleven main markets for semi-manufactures in copper and copper alloys. This new original data has been used to verify historical time series statistics of apparent and reported... Read more →

With a new coating process, researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have produced electrodes for lithium-ion batteries at record speed. At the same time, the new process improves the quality of electrodes and reduces production costs. Precise edges at new record speed: new process considerably increases production capacity of... Read more →

With its EcoPaintJet system, Dürr is presenting an automated application solution that ensures an unprecedented level of precision in applying sharp paint lines, enabling two-tone painting with reduced cost and effort. The EcoPaintJet also offers important benefits in the painting of electric cars. The EcoPaintJet is a quantum leap in... Read more →

Starting in 2021, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Poland (TMMP) plans to produce a second electronic continuously variable transmission (e-CVT) at its plant in Wałbrzych. With this €70-million investment, TMMP will also be producing one of the electric motors that is integral to Toyota’s hybrid electric powertrain system. Together with earlier announcements,... Read more →

The aluminum producer Hydro now supplies sustainable aluminum for the battery housing of the Audi e-tron EV. The material is processed and manufactured along the entire process chain in an environmentally friendly manner and under socially acceptable working conditions. This has been confirmed by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) with... Read more →

Magna and the BAIC Group have signed a framework agreement governing their electric vehicle manufacturing joint venture (earlier post) in Zhenjiang, China, which marks another milestone of their continued cooperation. The transaction, which is pending regulatory approval and other closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of... Read more →

BMW Group Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina has doubled its capacity for production of high-voltage batteries. The plant’s own battery facility now produces the new fourth-generation batteries. These are intended for the plug-in hybrid models of the new BMW X5 and the future BMW X3, also produced in Spartanburg. We... Read more →

Volvo Cars has made investments in two Israeli technology start-ups through the Volvo Cars Tech Fund, the company’s venture capital investment arm. Both UVeye and MDGo have their headquarters in Tel Aviv, where Volvo Cars has been involved with DRIVE, an accelerator for young companies in the mobility sector, since... Read more →

BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) has become the first automobile manufacturer to enable full 5G wireless coverage at all its plants. The new wireless standard allows large quantities of data to be transferred within a very short space of time, since data will now be processed in small, high-performance computer centers... Read more →

Researchers from the National University of Science and Technology (MISIS) in Russia have developed a database that will help create new grades of steels. This will speed up the process of creating innovative steel grades with specified strength and ductility allow at least 10 times, which will allow manufacturing car... Read more →

The Audi e-tron GT is the first vehicle in the VW Group to dispense with an actual prototype in the 3P (Production Preparation Process) workshops, according to Markus Moinot, Head of Production Planning Processes in Neckarsulm. Using VR glasses and controllers, employees from various departments test all assembly processes entirely... Read more →

Since 2018, the BMW Group has been using various AI applications in series production. One focus is automated image recognition: In these processes, artificial intelligence evaluates component images in ongoing production and compares them in milliseconds to hundreds of other images of the same sequence. This way, the AI application... Read more →

Pre-series production of the ID.3 EV has already begun at the Volkswagen plant in Zwickau. The core components for electric cars are developed and produced for the new electric vehicles at the Volkswagen Group Components plants: the electric drive comes from Kassel; the Salzgitter plant supplies its colleagues in Hessen... Read more →

Germany-based AKASOL, a manufacturer of high-performance lithium-ion battery systems for commercial vehicles, plans to open a production facility in the metro Detroit area of Michigan. Opening dedicated operations in North America comes in response to specific demand for the firm’s high energy battery modules from major international manufacturers and will... Read more →

Voltaiq, a developer of advanced battery analytics solutions, has released, in partnership with Total Battery Consulting, an industry survey examining many of the challenges and opportunities battery manufacturers, suppliers and integrators currently face. The global battery industry is facing unprecedented growth and change. Over the next decade, as we continue... Read more →

UK Natural History Museum Head of Earth Sciences Prof Richard Herrington and fellow expert members of SoS MinErals (an interdisciplinary program of NERC-EPSRC-Newton-FAPESP funded research) recently wrote a letter to the UK Committee on Climate Change pointing out that meeting UK electric car targets for 2050 would require production of... Read more →

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced $89 million to support innovative, advanced manufacturing research and development projects (DE-FOA-0001980). This Department of Energy (DOE) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) tackles key priorities such as domestic manufacturing for energy storage. US manufacturers have created almost 500,000 jobs since 2017 and more than 250,000... Read more →

Volkswagen has opened a new IT Development Center in its Gläserne Manufaktur in Dresden. In Software Development Center Production (SDC Production), up to 80 newly hired IT specialists will be working on the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud. In the future, the Industrial Cloud will link all 122 Group-wide Volkswagen production facilities.... Read more →

Researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have demonstrated an advanced friction extrusion manufacturing process to produce nanostructured rods and tubes directly from high-performance aluminum alloy powder in a single step. Using a novel Solid Phase Processing (SPP) approach, the research team eliminated several steps that are required during conventional... Read more →

Volkswagen AG intends to group more than 5,000 digital experts together in its new “Car.Software” unit with Group responsibility for software in the vehicle by 2025. The company plans to develop significantly more software in the car and for vehicle-related services itself and to boost the in-house share of software... Read more →

Together with telecommunications company Telefónica Deutschland and network supplier Ericsson, Mercedes-Benz Cars is putting in place the world’s first 5G mobile network for automobile production in its “Factory 56” in Sindelfingen. The 5G network is being installed by telecommunications company Telefónica Deutschland in collaboration with network supplier Ericsson. Once installation... Read more →

The BMW Group officially opened the company’s new automotive plant in San Luis Potosi in Mexico. The company has invested more than US$1 billion in the new production location. The plant, which already employs 2,500 people, will have a capacity of up to 175,000 units per year once the ramp-up... Read more →

Volvo Cars and Varjo, the Finnish maker of high-end augmented reality headsets, have created a mixed reality approach to evaluating prototypes, designs and active safety technologies. The collaboration will be further strengthened by the Volvo Cars Tech Fund’s decision to invest in Varjo. The Tech Fund is the car maker’s... Read more →

BASF plans to build an engineering plastics compounding plant and a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) plant at the company’s proposed integrated chemical production (“Verbund”) site in Zhanjiang, China. These will be the first production plants to come onstream at the site. The Verbund site in Guangdong would be BASF’s largest investment,... Read more →

Since 2010, SEAT, a member of the Volkswagen Group, has improved its production-related environmental footprint by 34% on average with measures to emit less CO2 and fewer volatile organic compounds, generate less waste and consume less water and energy. Over the next few months, the company will implement measures designed... Read more →

As part of its electrification offensive the Volkswagen Group will move forward with setting up a battery cell production facility in Europe under a partnership. To that end, the Supervisory Board approved investments of just under one billion euros. Volkswagen plans to locate the battery cell production facility in Lower... Read more →

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lincoln Electric announced their continued collaboration on large-scale, robotic additive manufacturing technology at the Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing InnovationXLab Summit. The new agreement builds upon ORNL and Lincoln Electric’s previous developments by extending additive technology to new materials, leveraging data analytics and enabling rapid... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award $89 million to support innovative, advanced manufacturing research and development projects. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (DE-FOA-0001980) addresses priorities such as domestic manufacturing for energy storage. The US manufacturing sector is growing; US manufacturers have created almost 500,000 jobs since 2017 and more... Read more →

United States Steel Corporation (USS) will invest more than $1 billion to construct a new sustainable endless casting and rolling facility at its Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock, Pa., and a cogeneration facility at its Clairton Plant in Clairton, Pa., both part of the company’s Mon Valley Works. The cutting-edge... Read more →

Porsche has launched two new cogeneration plants in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen to enhance its environmentally friendly energy mix and close the remaining gap to CO2 neutral production of the fully electric Taycan in Zuffenhausen. The heat and power plants, each of which has an output of around two megawatts, run exclusively on... Read more →

ABB signed a formal agreement with SAIC Volkswagen to provide robotics painting solutions for the first New Energy Vehicle (NEV) factory of the Volkswagen Group based on the Modular Electric Driver Kit (MEB), an automotive platform specifically designed for the mass production of electric vehicles. Financial details were not disclosed.... Read more →

NextGenAM partners Premium AEROTEC, EOS and Daimler are building a pilot production line for a next-generation automated additive manufacturing (AM) process. The aim of the project is to develop a digitalized next-generation manufacturing line which can produce aluminum components for the automotive and aerospace sectors significantly more cost-effectively than is... Read more →

The BMW Group’s worldwide spare parts logistics center in Dingolfing has recently started piloting autonomous transport platforms. The electrically powered AutoBox helps to move incoming spare parts efficiently from the freight dock to the warehouse. With a deck space of almost 20 square meters, the AutoBox can transport 20 lattice... Read more →

Nissan’s Decherd assembly line is using a mirror bore process in the all-new 2019 Nissan Altima 2.5-liter engine. (At WCX SAE World Congress Experience this year in Detroit, Nissan presented a paper on the development of and technologies applied in the new 2.5L engine for the Altima, including the mirror... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group and blockchain specialist Minespider are collaborating to optimize raw material supply chains, eliminate sources of error, and guarantee social and ecological standards. The two will set up a pilot project to achieve transparency in the the global supply chain for lead. Starting in April, Volkswagen will work... Read more →

BMW Group Production is focusing increasingly on easy-to-use and effective virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality applications. VR images, or artificially created images, are ever more realistic and hard to distinguish from real pictures. In AR applications, illustrations complement real images. AR and VR images can be viewed in special... Read more →

Siemens is intensifying its cooperation with the EDAG Group—a leading global independent engineering company for the automotive industry—further to promote industrial applications of additive manufacturing (AM) and to make engineering and production processes more efficient. The “NextGenerationSpaceframe 2.0” intelligent modular system features a combination of bionically designed and additive-manufactured nodes... Read more →

At the site of the Mercedes-Benz Untertürkheim plant in Germany, the construction of the battery factory at the Brühl sub-plant has begun with the symbolic foundation-laying ceremony. By the end of the decade, Mercedes-Benz Cars will produce high-efficiency traction batteries for future Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles of the EQ product and... Read more →

BYD has produced its 300th bus at its Lancaster, Calif. manufacturing plant. BYD is celebrating the milestone with its highly valued customer and neighbor Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA). AVTA is closing in on a landmark of its own: 1 million miles of zero-emission bus operations. AVTA expects to make... Read more →

At Hannover Messe, Microsoft and the BMW Group announced a new community initiative to enable faster, more cost-effective innovation in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing production and profitability can be hindered by complex, proprietary systems that create data silos and slow productivity. The Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) is designed to break... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced nearly $5.2 million for a new solicitation (FBO423-19) under the High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) Initiative, the umbrella program for the HPC4Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg), HPC4Materials (HPC4Mtls), and HPC4Mobility programs. The new funding opportunity seeks qualified industry partners to work collaboratively with... Read more →

To permanently reduce CO2 emissions, steelmaker ArcelorMittal has developed a low-emissions technology strategy, which targets not only the use of alternative feedstocks and the conversion of CO2 emissions, but also the direct avoidance of carbon (Carbon Direct Avoidance, CDA). This year, the Group intends to launch a new project in... Read more →

An the 2019 Hannover Messe, Ericsson, together with Audi and Sick (a leading provider of sensors for industrial automation), is demonstrating human-robot interaction in real time using 5G. In the future, wireless production robots and employees will work hand in hand. Real-time interaction is essential for smooth collaboration. The key... Read more →

The Siemens technology group will be the integration partner for the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud. (Earlier post.) Volkswagen and Amazon Web Services (AWS) earlier this week announced the development of the Industrial Cloud; in the future, the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud will combine the data of all machines, plants and systems from... Read more →

SEAT, a member of the Volkswagen Group, presented its electric strategy which, until the beginning of 2021, includes six electric and plug-in hybrid models. The electric version of the Mii and el-Born will be the brand’s first two fully electric models, while the new generation Leon and the Tarraco will... Read more →