Automotive

Thailand is a major global manufacturer of motor vehicles, turning out 2,453,717 passenger and commercial vehicles in 2012 according to the ASEAN Automotive Federation. This represents an incredible 68% year-on-year increase compared with the flood-affected 2011. It's enough to make injection molding machinery suppliers stand up and take notice as evidenced by a Japanese machine builder's plans to manufacture machines there.

Just three years ago, Mexico was on the comeback trail as more U.S. manufacturers looked to our southern neighbor for labor cost savings that were starting to erode in China. Mexican states competed heavily for foreign investment with “unprecedented” financial incentives, according to a report from www.mexicogov.org released in March 2010.
   

When Plante & Moran LLC, a certified accounting, tax and business consulting firm, held a seminar in March regarding manufacturing in Mexico, they were hoping to get 40-50 people. Scott Sneckenberger, partner Global Services for Plante & Moran who led the seminar, told PlasticsToday that they were totally surprised when 87 people showed up for the Detroit-area event.
   

Global assembly of light vehicles is forecast to reach 82.1 million units this year, representing 4% year-on-year growth. The fortunes of the global industry are split, however, along geographical lines according to the consulting company making the forecast.

An insert molding process employing a co-polyamide adhesion promoter to bond aluminum tubing with fiberglass-reinforced polyamide 6 is being used by Mercedes Benz in several of its vehicles to derive weight savings.

The aluminum tubing employed in the vehicles connects both A-pillars together and supports the entire dashboard—from the steering wheel to the glove compartment. These elements used to be welded or screwed together with metal connecting plates, a stable solution, but one that involves more weight.

Bumpers for trucks and heavy goods vehicles are being increasingly manufactured from thermoplastics. Unlike previous models, these bumpers are no longer produced as a single piece from sheet molding compounds (SMC). Instead, they are manufactured on a modular basis from several components, consisting of, for example, polyamide and polyester compounds from Lanxess (Leverkusen, Germany). This reportedly enables easier repair.

Absolute Haitian enjoyed its best year ever in 2012, almost doubling total sales bookings over 2011, with much of the growth coming from a resurgent automotive market, particularly some first-time sales into transplant automotive OEM suppliers.

Passenger car front end carriers can now be designed exclusively of plastic, as illustrated by the new Skoda Octavia. The vehicle's front end carrier is made of Durethan DP BKV 60 H2.0 EF, a highly reinforced polyamide (PA) 6 from Lanxess (Leverkusen, Germany) with 60% glass-fiber filling.

Sabic Innovative Plastics has unveiled two new grades of Lexan CFR polycarbonate (PC) copolymers that will help aircraft OEMs, designers, and manufacturers realize new weight-out strategies while meeting the industry's strict regulatory demands at the Aircraft Interiors Expo running April 9-11 in Hamburg, Germany. These compliant materials reportedly enable processors to produce parts with thinner walls, which help reduce interior weight of an aircraft. 

A new optical pellet screening system employs a combination of LED illumination, cameras, and air blowers to detect and remove pellets with black spots from a stream of resin pellets with a resolution (spot size) of 0.03 mm. The Super Platon KP-10000T from Kubota (Tokyo) was recently installed at an Asian elastomer compounder.