The North American auto industry is beginning to convert to aluminum wiring, as engineers focus on cutting costs and reducing vehicle weight.

Nissan and Daimler are teaming up to make Mercedes-Benz engines at Nissan’s powertrain assembly plant here. Mercedes-Benz engines have never been made in the North America Free Trade region before.

British systems integrator Exmac Automation has installed a state-of-the-art assembly line here to build a new high-performance automotive engine. The line provides a near clean room production environment and has the capacity to produce 4000 engines annually.

Situated on the University of Michigan campus in Dearborn, MI, is the Institute for Advanced Vehicle Systems (IAVS). Faculty and students conduct research on low-mass vehicles, power trains, manufacturing processes, and auto body and chassis systems.

KVH Industries Inc. knows that people love to be entertained in their vehicles. This is why they developed the TracVision satellite communications system about 10 years ago. TracVision can provide hundreds of channels of live satellite television and music to cars, motor coaches, RVs or boats. The most recent version of the system is the A7. Assembling the antenna for the A7 posed an adhesive-related challenge for KVH.

Manufacturers must rethink the way they cut, strip and crimp high-voltage cable.

There’s an ongoing push toward lighter, smaller, thinner and more environmentally friendly wire and cable insulation in the auto industry. This affects cutting, stripping, crimping and other wire processing applications.

Bombardier Aerospace has borrowed several ideas from the auto industry that it hopes will help streamline production of the new CSeries regional jetliner.

Once a wire harness has been assembled, it must be tested for safety, continuity and functionality.

ASSEMBLY recently asked Joel Hoffmann, strategic market development manager of Intel’s Automotive Solutions Div., to discuss current trends affecting the automotive electronics sector.