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Jaguar SUV concept points to an all-aluminium future
09 JAN 20143MINS

Jaguar SUV concept points to an all-aluminium future

Jaguar Land Rover is being coy about whether we’ll ever see the Jaguar C-X17 again. The company unveiled its first SUV concept in Frankfurt in September. Last month, a slightly altered version made its Asia debut at the Guangzhou Motor Show, ahead of its preview in Hong Kong. The latest version of...

Aluminium remains vital for automotive lightweighting
07 JAN 20144MINS

Aluminium remains vital for automotive lightweighting

Delegates at the Future Automotive Body Structures seminar at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon, Warwickshire, found that aluminium still has a surprisingly prominent role. Rachel Lawler reports. Fifty per cent of all the patents filed in 1896 were related to bicycles. That’s more than 14,000 new...

Aluminium sector seeking support
25 DEC 20132MINS

Aluminium sector seeking support

Sheffield businessman Mark Neville has backed calls for the Government to help to create thousands of new jobs by backing the development of the aluminium sector in the UK. Mr Neville, from Sheffield Business Park-based Siemens Metal Technologies, told a special briefing at the Houses of...

Automotive could shift to secondary metal completelyl: Novelis
19 DEC 20132MINS

Automotive could shift to secondary metal completelyl: Novelis

Secondary aluminum could one day be automakers’ primary choice, a Novelis Inc. executive said. "They are not in that position yet, but they are asking. They want to be," Marco Palmieri, senior vice president and president of Novelis North America, said Dec. 17. "And I really believe that in the...

Auto  mileage standards  set off race between steel and aluminium
16 DEC 20133MINS

Auto mileage standards set off race between steel and aluminium

Higher gas mileage standards that automakers are required to meet by 2025 have set off a race between the steel and aluminium industries. Automakers have been increasingly turning to aluminum as a quick way to make cars lighter and improve gas mileage. But steel is fighting back by developing...

OEMs press Alcoa to share aluminum-bonding process
09 DEC 20134MINS

OEMs press Alcoa to share aluminum-bonding process

At the request of automakers, Alcoa Inc. is making its patented Alcoa 951 bonding process available to competitors who also supply aluminum to the auto industry. Alcoa 951 coats aluminum to prevent corrosion and prepare the surface for adhesives. It will help automakers produce more structural...

JLR uses aluminium for greater efficiency
20 NOV 20133MINS

JLR uses aluminium for greater efficiency

In 1948, Land Rover built its first Defender vehicle with a body made not from steel, which was scarce and expensive after the second world war, but of aluminium. Sixty-five years later, Jaguar Land Rover’s cutting-edge new Range Rover model is built from the same metal, but for different reasons....

Environmental concerns drive the rise of lightweight transportation in China
13 NOV 20131MINS

Environmental concerns drive the rise of lightweight transportation in China

To alleviate air pollution in China, the Chinese government has implemented various measures, one of which is to control vehicles' tailpipe emissions. Industry professionals, however, point out that tailpipe emissions control fails to touch the core of the problem. Instead, the only way to reduce...

Jaguar Land Rover helps drive university tie-ups
11 NOV 20133MINS

Jaguar Land Rover helps drive university tie-ups

In the engineering hall at Warwick Manufacturing Group, university students are working on a project to see if it is possible to use spot welding on an aluminium car body. “There are currently about 4,000 of these on a car,” says Paul Grimley, workshop supervisor, holding up an aluminium sheet with...

Manufacturers urged to follow car industry and embrace use of aluminium
05 NOV 20132MINS

Manufacturers urged to follow car industry and embrace use of aluminium

Businesses specialising in manufacturing and supplying aluminium have been urged to embrace the car industry’s growing demand for the metal or risk losing out to foreign competitors. President of ALFED (the Aluminium Federation) Carl Tomlinson will reinforce the point when he opens the UK aluminium...

SMARTDRESS welding system allows automatic aluminium welding for the automotive sector
05 NOV 20132MINS

SMARTDRESS welding system allows automatic aluminium welding for the automotive sector

European researchers have found a way make the automotive sector more eco-friendly, while at the same time cutting production costs. The EU-funded project SMARTDRESS ('Adaptive tip dress control for automated resistance spot welding') is developing a fully automated control system to improve...

BMW to launch i3 electric car with aluminium rolling chassis
01 NOV 20131MINS

BMW to launch i3 electric car with aluminium rolling chassis

BMW will launch the electric i3 in India next year. The car which is powered by a 125kw motor run by lithium-ion batteries has a range of about 150km on a single charge. The i3 is also the first car to roll out under BMW's new sub-brand BMW i. BMW i has been created specifically for vehicles that...

New Aluminium Alloy from Novelis enables remote laser welding
25 OCT 20132MINS

New Aluminium Alloy from Novelis enables remote laser welding

The new laser remote weldable alloy is a patented multi-layer aluminium sheet product based on Novelis Fusion. This breakthrough delivers a solution to the industry’s long-time challenge of joining aluminum in automotive production. One of the latest Novelis’ innovations is the remote weldable...

Showa Denko completes high-purity aluminum foil plant in China
17 OCT 20132MINS

Showa Denko completes high-purity aluminum foil plant in China

Showa Denko has completed a new plant in Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, China, for producing high-purity aluminum foil for electrolytic capacitors. A completion ceremony was held at the site on October 11. Showa Denko Aluminum (Nantong) Co., Ltd., SDK’s subsidiary established in November 2011,...

Alcoa to fund internships with $1.25M as part of 125th anniversary
02 OCT 20133MINS

Alcoa to fund internships with $1.25M as part of 125th anniversary

Alcoa Inc. will benefit from “a once in a lifetime shift” by the auto industry toward using more aluminum in its best-selling vehicles, CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said on Monday. “The big change is, aluminum has a leg up” on steel, Kleinfeld said in Alcoa's Corporate Center on the North Shore during the...

Jaguar invests $2.3bn in new vehicle design
25 SEPT 20132MINS

Jaguar invests $2.3bn in new vehicle design

Jaguar Land Rover has announced that it has invested GBP1.5 billion ($2.3 billion) to introduce an all-new technically-advanced aluminium vehicle architecture in forthcoming models. To support this strengthening of the Jaguar product portfolio, 1,700 new jobs will be created in the UK at the...

Alcoa's breakthrough automotive bonding technology named aluminum industry's best
24 SEPT 20132MINS

Alcoa's breakthrough automotive bonding technology named aluminum industry's best

Alcoa was awarded Metal Bulletin's top innovation prize for the company's breakthrough technology enabling the production of more aluminum-intensive vehicles. Alcoa's invention, an aluminum bonding technology, won "Best Product Innovation" of 2013 at the publication's Global Awards for Aluminium...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory recommends automotive aluminium over steel
23 SEPT 20132MINS

Oak Ridge National Laboratory recommends automotive aluminium over steel

Opting for aluminum over steel in new automobile construction to improve fuel economy is also the best way to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, according to a new study by the United States Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). “As the U.S. works to reduce...