Us Ford Hires Melbourne Team
The Age
Thursday August 28, 1997
Canberra
A consortium of Melbourne researchers has won part of a $200 million contract from the head office of Ford in Detroit to design and construct a family car that would be 40 per cent lighter than existing models.
The consortium of the CSIRO and the Cooperative Research Centre for Alloy and Solidification Technology will design and supply engine mount brackets made from lightweight Australian magnesium in a global project to design a far more fuel-efficient car.
The chief executive officer of the CSIRO Australian Automotive Technology Centre, Mr David Lamb, said Ford researchers had tested a magnesium seat frame designed by the centre and found it stronger than steel.
Mr Lamb was one of three industry leaders who told a seminar at Parliament House that there were unlimited prospects for the Australian car industry if the Government retained the nation's competitive edge as a home for research and development.
He said work by the centre, in Preston, showed it was possible to design cars that would use only three litres of petrol per 100 kilometres, and would run on a hybrid of power sources.
"The next generation of cars will be electric, but not running on batteries," he said. "The cars will have their own on-board generator. We'll soon be making public plans for an Australian project to demonstrate what we can do towards an all-Australian hybrid electric car."
Mr Lamb said CSIRO technology could improve fuel efficiency by putting electric motors in car wheels, vastly reducing the power needed to generate speed. Supercapacitators could be used to supply stored power for moments of acceleration.
He said the Australian concept car, designed as a showpiece to exhibit the strengths of the nation's component makers, would be taken to world car shows next year. Mr Lamb said that component exports could rise from last year's $860 million to $3 billion by 2005.
The director of the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers, Mr Malcolm Stewart, said competitiveness in cost and quality was no longer enough; research had become essential to firms' survival.
"We have entered a new phase of rationalisation and there are only two sources of comparative advantage: cost and proprietary technology," Mr Stewart said.
"Cost competitiveness does not guarantee a firm unless that firm also owns the technology," he said.
© 1997 The Age