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Author Archives: Klaus Wiedemann
Top Luxury Brand Stays Ahead with PLM
When only the best is good enough, Bang & Olufsen is the first stop in audio and video solutions for the home and car – that is, if you’re shopping in the Aston Martin, Mercedes AMG, BMW or Audi segment. On its homepage, Bang & Olufsen proudly refers to itself as “an icon of performance and design excellence [with] a …
Glimpses Into the Future of Product Development
If you’ve ever wondered who Germany’s top product development experts are then the International Congress Center in Stuttgart was the place to go in November. On November 15 and 16 the Stuttgart Congress Center was the theater for one of the largest product development congresses in Europe. More than 1,300 participants registered and 1,000-plus made their way to Stuttgart from …
Luxury Car Brands Adopt Hybrid Technology – But What About the Rest of Us?
The global auto industry has made an amazing recovery since the energy price crisis of 2008 and 2009, and sales figures indicate unbroken popularity of fast, powerful and luxurious vehicles. But that hasn’t stopped R&D departments of leading manufacturers and suppliers from looking into the future, experimenting with ways to increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact. Research into alternative …
Volkswagen Adopts New Compact Platform
In a recent interview with German automotive trade publication Automobil Industrie, Michael Macht, member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG (responsible for production), said he expected cost savings of up to 20 percent and assembly-time reductions of up to 30 percent with the introduction of Volkswagen’s new MQB platform, which will start in 2012. MQB stands for the …
Deutsche Post DHL Fleet Goes Electric
Deutsche Post DHL, the world’s leading logistics group, has commissioned German based StreetScooter to develop a new electric vehicle for its delivery fleet. The new delivery vehicle will be based on the modular StreetScooter electric car platform, which was shown at the Frankfurt IAA 2011 auto show in September (watch the video). It’s part of Deutsche Post DHL’s global GoGreen initiative aimed at …
Chancellor Angela Merkel Visits International Auto Show
At the StreetScooter booth, Mrs. Merkel was welcomed by Arndt Kirchhoff, CEO of KIRCHHOFF Automotive, one of the major partner companies of the StreetScooter network. “As shareholders, we are proud to present a roadworthy vehicle after only 15 months of development time,” Kirchhoff said. Professor Achim Kampker of RWTH Aachen University and CEO of StreetScooter GmbH, provided a firsthand explanation of the …
Test Drive for New Electric Car
On Friday, September 2nd, after a total assembly time of eight weeks, the first StreetScooter prototype was completed, generating a great deal of excitement in the auto industry. Although StreetScooter is not the only electric car being developed in Germany, it is keenly followed by media and industry because of its radically forward-looking and innovative approach to technology and manufacturing. Assembly of the prototype began …
Driving Down the Cost of Electric Cars
Forbes recently published an interesting article on the comeback of electric cars. Author Althea Chang predicts that “electric cars will become fairly commonplace in the not-too-distant future,” but only if the industry manages to overcome two major obstacles – cost and the availability of electric car charging stations nationwide. While the latter turns out to be quite easy to overcome—as …
New Electric Car Offers a Sustainable Future
In May 2011, the StreetScooter Consortium—headed by RWTH Aachen University in Germany—presented its forward-looking electric car concept to the public for the first time. The StreetScooter project—which aims to demonstrate that electrical vehicles can be produced at a competitive price in small batches by a network of supply chain partners without the need for sustained government funding—was launched in December …
IBM’s Design Philosophy Spawns Next-Generation Electric Car
What does a 1980s IBM PC have to do with the future of the automotive industry? Well, it plays a key role in the thinking behind StreetScooter, an e-car design that is currently being developed in Germany by a consortium of 30 companies under the leadership of StreetScooter GmbH, a company founded by RWTH Aachen University. The StreetScooter team incorporates …
