REGENSBURG, Germany—BMW’s assembly plant here has become the first automotive factory in the world to use an end-to-end digitalized and automated process for inspection, processing and marking of painted vehicle surfaces in standard production.
At the end of 2020, the Renault assembly plant in Flins, France, embarked on a new path to focus on the circular economy. The automaker set a goal of buying less, extracting value from existing products, and creating a new industrial model centered on sustainability.
Engineers at Tesla Inc. have developed a new process that they claim will reduce EV production costs by 50 percent, while reducing factory space by 40 percent.
Atypical car contains some 30,000 parts, including fasteners, from dozens of suppliers. All these components must arrive at an OEM’s assembly plant in the right sequence at the exact moment that they’re needed. It’s a massive undertaking.
PLANO, TX—Siemens Digital Industries Software and Daimler Truck AG are collaborating to implement a state-of-the-art digital engineering platform built using the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of software and services. The new platform will enable Daimler Truck to explore a future of commercial vehicle innovation and the efficient product development and life cycle management of trucks and buses and will be rolled out globally across Daimler Trucks’ engineering hubs, brands and business segments.
MONTERREY, Mexico—Luminar has opened a new highly automated, high-volume assembly plant here. The factory is dedicated to producing the company’s Iris automotive lidar sensors.
The need to extend the range of electric vehicles is pushing automakers to adopt higher battery voltages. Most passenger EVs are powered by a 400-volt battery pack, while electric buses and trucks are powered by 600-volt battery packs.
CARROLLTON, TX—Siemens has opened a new assembly plant here to produce chargers for electric vehicles. The company’s second EV charger manufacturing hub in the U.S., the factory will help the company meet its goal of producing 1 million EV chargers for the U.S. market.
SEOUL—Hyundai Motor Group and a coalition of aerospace partners has started building a prototype for an autonomous vehicle to explore the surface of the moon.