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Road Ready

Energy

Honda Ready with First North American Crossover EV

Honda knows what U.S. buyers like: crossovers. So it makes perfect sense that the company chose a crossover SUV configuration for its first “mainstream” U.S.-market EV, the 2024...

Articles

Transportation

Software-defined... Headache?

The “software-defined vehicle” is the auto industry’s latest fascination. Probably with due cause, as engineers and other experts and analysts understand that the vehicle-electrification transformation rests on the back of software.

Articles

Automotive

Infineon Semiconductor Technology Helps Makes Electrified Vehicles Greener, Smarter and More Secure

Electrified vehicles are growing in popularity exponentially. For this Expert Insight interview, SAE’s Automotive Engineering spoke with Bill Stewart of Infineon on how his company helps automakers meet climate and government pressures.

Editorial

Transportation

Engineering the ‘Sustainability Thing’

Sustainable and sustainability are words that are fast becoming industry vernacular. They’re woven into executive speeches, press releases, marketing, and engineers’ messaging.

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Software

Unlocking DfAM’s Potential

A new field-based design software is supporting more widespread use of Additive Manufacturing, for faster product development times with less rework and risk.

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Power

F1 Streamlines for Closer Racing

Ongoing aerodynamic development of Formula 1 racecars has the most obvious goals of increasing the cars’ downforce and reducing their drag to produce the fastest speeds and quickest lap times.

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Manufacturing & Prototyping

Aluminum: Toward 50% Body Content

As experts have noted, the mixed-materials trend is becoming an enduring one, as evidenced across the landscape of recent new-vehicle introductions.

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Manufacturing & Prototyping

A Step-change in the Cost of CFRP

A joke in the auto industry about CFRP is that the “C” stands for “costly.” So, any manufacturing process that solves this significant drawback of the ultra-lightweight material’s use outside of Formula One racing and exotic supercars, could change the vehicle-production game.

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Materials

The Economics of Materials Selection

At the 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers’ ANTEC conference, Dr. Taub, formerly GM’s head of R&D, presented a review of the three major materials groups—steel, aluminum, and composites—that he expects will predominate in vehicle body structures going forward.

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Transportation

Steel Stands Tall

In 2014, just before Ford shook the industry with the introduction of its aluminum-intensive F-150, Ducker Worldwide released a study for the aluminum industry. The report predicted that the light metal would dominate the North American light-truck segment in the next new-model development cycle.

What We’re Driving

Transportation

2019 Ford Ranger XL STX

America needs more midsized pickups. The case for the new Ford Ranger is made by increasingly strong sales of GM’s models and the perennial fan base of the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier. And now Jeep’s back in the game.

Technical Innovation

Robotics, Automation & Control

SAE Launches Office of Automation

SAE International announced at its 2019 Government/Industry Meeting the creation of a new unit, the Office of Automation, focused on helping industry coordinate the development and dissemination of automated-driving technologies.

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Manufacturing & Prototyping

Protecting High-voltage Circuits

As OEMs develop their next-generation electrical architectures aimed at new hybrid, EV and autonomous vehicles, engineers are focused on delivering systems that are even more robust and “fail-safe” than those used today.

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Materials

Foam for NVH Solutions

Avery Dennison FT 8392 is a high-performance, foam bonding tape ideal for automotive NVH applications. The 3.6 mil tape is a double-coated differential with an acrylic adhesive for the lamination side and a rubber adhesive for the substrate side featuring a PET film carrier.

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Manufacturing & Prototyping

Reducing NVH Through Refined Powertrain Measurement

Accurate measurements of vehicle centers-of-gravity and inertia are vital for helping NVH engineers further improve their dynamic vehicle models — and thus improve performance and safety.

Articles

Power

Paradigm Shift in NVH

When you’re in the business of NVH solutions, you get to know noise and vibration up close and personal. And for these experts, it can be difficult to sequester the ‘N and V’ throughout their own day.

Articles

Materials

Rethinking Aluminum for NVH Abatement

Engineers, abandon those mastics! New “quiet” materials solutions are at hand.

Original Equipment

Unmanned Systems

GM Defense Adapts Hummer EV for Military Concept Vehicle

GM Defense announced in July 2022 that the U.S. Army selected it to provide a battery-electric vehicle for analysis and demonstration. As a subsidiary of General Motors, that vehicle...

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Connectivity

Connectivity Solutions for AVs

There is broad agreement that AVs need connectivity for up-to-date high-resolution maps as road conditions and landmarks can change due to construction, for example.

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Data Acquisition

Data Management and Storage for Autonomous-Vehicle Developers

Dell EMC chief technology officer Dr. Florian Baumann, Ph.D, discusses with SAE’s Autonomous Vehicle Engineering the important role of storage systems and data management in the face of growing data volumes and increasing performance requirements.

Original Equipment

Transportation

New Mercedes-Benz Actros Loaded with ADAS, Active Safety Tech

Mercedes-Benz Trucks, the European arm of the Daimler Trucks business, has launched an updated Actros heavy-duty truck flagship, packed with new technologies, vehicle safety and driver-assistance features.

Technical Innovation

Power

DSD Helps ‘Balance the Books’ for Buying Electric Truck Technology

In the discerning world of truck operations, where procurement decisions must be based on total cost of ownership (TCO), the case for moving to environmentally...

Q&A

Transportation

Engineering Harley’s Electric 2020 LiveWire

Sean Stanley is one of a new generation of motorcycle engineers who are as fluent in battery cooling and electronics integration as their predecessors were in optimizing cam profiles and...

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Transportation

Other Expert Voices

Noted industry experts in Powertrain technologies shared their views on future propulsion trends during SAE’s 2019 WCX panel, “Still Not Dead: The ICE’s Continued Evolution,” moderated by Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Brooke. Read on to see the insights doled out.

Q&A

Automotive

Engineering Battery Packs for the ‘Underserved’ OEMs

Few battery experts in the mobility industry can match the engineer/entrepreneur spirit of Subash Dhar. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, Dhar is co-inventor of over 45 patents and patent applications in the field of advanced batteries and fuel cell technologies.

Articles

Propulsion

Miserly Power Systems

Digital technologies continue to transform commercial trucking as powertrain providers devise new ways to eke more from each drop of fuel. Engines now adapt to road conditions, adjusting power and shutting down some or all of the cylinders as demands change.

Articles

Power

On the Verge of the Digital Age

An intense focus on connectivity and the digitalization of seemingly every aspect of off-highway vehicles not surprisingly is impacting mobile hydraulics and machine controls as well. Increasingly advanced solutions are being revealed at every machine redesign.

Technical Innovation

Test & Measurement

Knapheide Saves Costs, Time by Moving Vehicle Life Testing In-House

The Knapheide Manufacturing Co. has always sent its products out to be tested, but with the wide variety of product types that the Quincy, Ill.-based company makes, the cost of farming out the testing process had become excessive. Read on to learn the solution.

Q&A

Automotive

Magna Prepared for AV “Marathon”

Swamy Kotagiri is Magna’s chief technology officer and head of the company’s Power & Vision segment. Automotive Engineering contributor Sebastian Blanco spoke with him at the 2019 opening of Magna Electronics’ new manufacturing facility near Holly, MI. Read on for highlights of the conversation.