Williams Controls Awarded Its Largest Contract For Electronic Throttle Controls
21 June 1999
Williams Controls Awarded Its Largest Contract For Automotive Electronic Throttle Controls
Williams' Second Automotive ETC Contract is for 160,000 Units
Per Year on the Pontiac Grand Prix
PORTLAND, Ore., June 18 -- Williams Controls, Inc.
today announced that it has been awarded a five year contract
to manufacture electronic throttle controls (ETCs) for the General Motors'
Pontiac Grand Prix automobile. This is the second automotive ETC contract
that has been awarded to Williams Controls, the predominant supplier of ETCs
to the heavy truck market for the past thirteen years, as the company
continues to successfully execute its strategy to penetrate the lucrative
automotive market.
The contract was awarded for the 2003 Grand Prix model and production is
expected to begin in the summer of 2002. Revenues over the life of this five-
year agreement are estimated to be $9 million. The first contract awarded to
Williams Controls was for approximately 35,000 ETC systems for the Chevrolet
Corvette, and 55,000 ETC systems for various light and medium duty truck
models manufactured by General Motors . This contract was announced
four weeks ago.
The Pontiac Grand Prix is based on General Motors' popular "W" car
platform. The Grand Prix is the first of several models on this platform that
GM currently intends to convert to an electronic throttle control system in
the next few years. This platform, with an expected production of 800,000
units per year, includes the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Impala, Oldsmobile
Cutlass Supreme and Intrigue, and the Buick Regal and Century. While only the
Grand Prix contract has been awarded to date, total ETC expenditures for the
"W" car platform could reach $45 million, based on the projected production
volume, once all models convert to ETC technology.
"This is another tremendous contract win for our company," said Williams
Controls chairman and chief executive officer Thomas W. Itin, of the company's
second major automotive contract win in the last month. "We have spent
heavily over the last two years to lay the groundwork for this strategy to
penetrate the automotive market, and this contract confirms that Williams
Controls is a major player in the automotive ETC market. The 250,000 annual
units of automotive and light truck ETC production, which have been awarded to
Williams in the last four weeks, is already more than half of the ETC unit
volume that we do in our traditional heavy truck markets, and the auto
industry has just begun to convert its car models to ETC technology."
"The exciting part of this contract for Williams is that the electronic
position sensor, an integral part of the Williams ETC system for the Grand
Prix, will be built by the company's Aptek Williams subsidiary in Deerfield
Beach, Florida," stated Timothy J. Marker, vice president, sales and marketing
for Williams Controls. "Producing our own sensor will ensure that our ETC
system has built-in quality that we will control and that it will be cost
effective to our customer. We will continue to invest heavily in research and
development, as we have done for the last two years to gain entry into this
market, in order to enhance our position within the automotive industry as it
accelerates it conversion to ETC technology, and we will continue to
aggressively pursue the many opportunities in other passenger vehicle models
that are beginning to convert to electronic throttle controls."
"Our high tech electronic sensor, which was developed and will be built by
Aptek Williams, has been integrated into the Grand Prix's ETC design to
provide high performance at a very competitive cost," stated Ronald J. Velat,
vice president and general manager of Aptek Williams. "The sensor is a
universal design that provides up to three signal outputs for better vehicle
control, is modular in design, and is easily adaptable to other vehicle
applications. This is a major competitive advantage that we believe will be
attractive to passenger vehicle manufacturers in the future."
Williams Controls is a manufacturer and integrator of sensors, controls
and communication systems for the transportation and communication industries.
For more information, you can find the Company at http://www.wmco.com on the World
Wide Web.
Forward-looking statements in this news release, if any, are made under
the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Certain important factors could cause results to differ materially from
those anticipated by the statements, including the impact of changing economic
or business conditions, the impact of competition, the availability of
financing, the success of products in the marketplace, other factors inherent
in the industry and other factors discussed from time to time in reports filed
by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.