Steve Purdy Report : 2015 C.A.R. Automotive Management Seminars - Day One

CENTER FOR AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH
MANAGEMENT BRIEFING SEMINARS 2015
50TH ANNIVERSARY

DAY ONE

By Steve Purdy
Senior Editor
The Auto Channel
Michigan Bureau

Violent storms rolled through beautiful Traverse City, Michigan Sunday afternoon before the Monday start of the annual Management Briefing Seminars hosted by the Center for Automotive Research, an Ann Arbor-based automotive think tank. This is the 50th iteration of what has become one of the most important auto industry conferences in the world. It is not one we’ll soon forget.

From high ground just south of town we witnessed the storm approaching – a curved line of roiling whitish clouds leading a dark and ominous cloud bank across the twin bays of the Grand Traverse area. Between the cloud banks an eerie, vivid turquoise band of color added an element I’ve never before seen in a storm. From where we were watching it looked like this wild front curved downward right into the East Bay. As the storm passed it tore trees from the ground, pounded the desperately dry ground with sheets of rain and, as you might surmise, caused broad power outages throughout the area- including the Grand Travers Resort, site of the MBS.

With morning sessions canceled and the convention center on auxiliary power we were able to spend extra time with our morning interviewees from the Steel Market Development Institute who wanted to make the case for high-strength steel as a preferred element of vehicle light-weighting. Steel increasingly competes with aluminum, carbon fiber or other exotic materials as OEMs chase demanding CAFE standards hitting the industry ever harder over the next decade.

Jody Hall, PhD, VP for the Steel Institute’s automotive arm did a fine job making the case. Compared to aluminum, she insists, steel has a much lower carbon footprint when considering its entire lifecycle. That is, its production is less energy intensive, it is more versatile and is more recyclable then other lightweight materials. I showed her the feature story I’d seen in Automotive Design and Production magazine about the new Volvo XC90 touting multiple grades of high-strength steel – mild, high-strength, very high-strength, extra high-strength and ultra high-strength. She explained to me how the production processes results in varying levels of structural integrity, but most of the hard science went over my head. Sorry, I’ll not be able to explain that to you without further research.

I asked about the issue of first responders having problems getting accident victims out of cars with pillars made out of high-strength steel. She said they are working with development folks on that issue as well.

The other big topic on our Day One agenda is that of “Connected and Automated Vehicles.” We’ll hear from the Michigan Department of Transportation, a Toyota executive engineer and a high-end analyst. Then a panel of tier-one supplier experts on the topic will flesh out the topic. This may be one of the most timely and important topics of the week. It seems a story about cars that are being designed to drive themselves hits the news at least every week, sometimes more often. Of course, developing truly autonomous cars will involve rethinking not only the automobile but the infrastructure. The regulatory and legal environments are equally as important and unsettled.

In the driveway behind the resort the Continental Automotive folks provided a ride in their new semi-autonomous Chrysler 300 test vehicle with hidden 360-degree radar, that is, sensors on the sides, corners, front and rear. While we’ve driven many production vehicles with lane departure intervention, adaptive cruise control, brake intervention and other systems that will one day contribute to a car being able to drive itself, the key is to be able to integrate all these capabilities so they work together. Our Conti demonstration drive assures me we’re headed more quickly in that direction than some of us might think.

We had a brief chat with David Cole who founded the Center for Automotive Research many years ago and who oversaw the growth of the Management Briefing Seminars over the years through the cyclical extremes of this volatile industry. He is now chairman emeritus of CAR and here to celebrate its 50th year. He is humble about his accomplishments here and noted it is also his 50th wedding anniversary. We congratulate him on both and note that over the years when he was introducing a topic, a panel or just taking the podium, he usually had a family story to share.

Families are important to the conference as well. The organizers have chosen to include spouses and kids in many activities and because of the early August timing of the event it is easy to plan a bit of family vacation here in Northern Michigan. MBS is one of the few automotive events my pretty wife will join me in covering.

Watch for more reports here on TAC as the week develops.

CENTER FOR AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH
MANAGEMENT BRIEFING SEMINARS 2015 Reports

SEE ALSO: Speaker Presentations (PDF)