AUTOMOTIVE | OPEN HOUSE
Engel and friends look at the future of automotive
Peter Mapleston reports from Engel’s
Trend.scaut 2017 conference and technology demonstration about issues around EVs, car interiors and lightweight structures
Main image: Engel’s St. Valentin,
Austria facility was host to around 500 visitors
Expert opinions on automotive trends that will have important effects on the plastics injection moulding supply chain came thick and fast at Engel’s latest
Trend.scaut conference in Linz, Austria in late June. The event, which attracted around 500 guests from around the world, was followed by an open house at the company’s recently extended St. Valentin site, where it builds large injection moulding machines, many of them for automotive applications. Almost one-half of Engel’s turnover is derived
from the automotive industry, CSO Christoph Steger said. For the last 10 years, sales from the sector have been averaging annual growth of 10%, but Engel’s target through 2018/19 is rather more modest, at 5% per year, thanks to various economic and social factors. Nevertheless, Engel continues to invest massively, with something like €400m to be spent at its facilities around the world over the next four years (not just for automotive). Engel currently has capacity for 900 machines
per year in St. Valentin, in sizes from 3,500 to 55,500 kN. The plant also makes screws and barrels for all sizes of injection machines. The latest expansion there will add another 8,000m2 total floor area to 60,000m2
, taking . An additional 4,100m2
of production space has already been created and this winter, construction will begin on a new office building and an even bigger customer technology centre. More space will also be created for the Centre for Lightweight Composite Technologies.
16 INJECTION WORLD | September 2017 Automobile makers Audi, Volkswagen and Volvo
all spoke at the conference, together with market analysts LMC Automotive and McKinsey, Tier Ones Magna Steyr and Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, displays producer Continental, development consultant Car Men, battery pack maker Kreisel Electric, polymer suppliers BASF and SABIC, metals major Voest Alpine, and Engel itself.
Car market outlook The global vehicle market is in its eighth straight year of growth, recovering from a massive low in the 2008/9 economic crisis, said Justin Cox from LMC Automotive. Current growth is currently around 3% per year. South America shows the best prospects, albeit attached to high risk due to the volatile political situation in some countries. China, on the other hand, has the brakes on, coming down from 13% growth in 2016 to a possible 3% this year. Without a continuation of current incen- tives, growth could stop completely in 2018 – which is what has already happened in the US following its recovery from the low during the crisis. Europe has had strong growth since 2014, but the pace is now slowing to 2% at best. Not surprisingly, low oil prices have had their
effect on growth of electric vehicles. Even in Japan, which is a major market for EVs, sales of all-electric vehicles powered only by battery – BEVs – are much lower than hybrids. Today, all EVs still account for
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