Southern Automotive Alliance August-September 2018

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

SAMA Building synergy between automotive manufacturing associations in the South

ABL-Technic Serving OEMS, suppliers and communities from Georgia to Africa

The Beauty of Speed George Barber brings sleek engineering and design to the world’s largest motorcycle museum in Birmingham

Industry Outlook: Will tariffs stall the automotive industry?

SIGN UP NOW FOR A FREE PRINT SUBSCRIPTION AT SOUTHERNAUTOMOTIVEALLIANCE.COM AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 1 April 2012 BusinessAlabama.com | 1

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 3

4 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 5

6 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 7

George Barber’s love of engineering brought Birmingham the unique gift of a world -class museum.

aug.sept

2018 volume 3 number 4

Features 20 EXECUTIVE Q&A

Leaders from the Southern Automotive Manufacturers Alliance got together to talk about synergy and strategy for the industry

24 SAC 2018 PREVIEW

Supplier Profiles 38 INNOVATION:

Preventing deaths of infants and others in hot cars is driving an entrepreneur and an inventor to market with a new device

4O SPOTLIGHT:

George Barber brought his community the biggest motorcycle museum in the world and that’s just the beginning at his motorsports park

The SAC 2018 event promises to be the biggest event in Southern Automotive Conference history

28 INDUSTRY OUTLOOK

What U.S. tariffs are supposed to do, and what automotive experts fear they will do are two different things

32 BUILT BY DESIGN

Through the GreenpowerUSA program kids get enhanced STEM education they can take to the streets – and the workforce

36 INNOVATION

New ideas propelling the industry forward are making their mark on the Southern automotive sector

48 INSIDE THE OEMS: New Flyer is bringing public transportation to the future

50 WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT:

Kia partnered with Troupe County, Georgia to pioneer a program that challenges kids to THINC

53 BEST PRACTICES:

A fire at a magnesium supplier forced delays in car making around the country, but what if the disaster could have been predicted?

ON THE COVER: Leaders of the Southern Automotive Manufacturers’ Alliance got together to shoot a video and stayed to talk about common goals.

8 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

54 ABL-Technic

A German company’s Georgia plant leads in a surprising service to the industry and reaching out

56 Richardson Molding

Automotive is just part of a wide ranging injection molded plastics business in Mississippi

Faces of the Industry 58 Dave Tatman

He went from GM to head of the Kentucky Automotive Industry Association and now bluegrass is home

60 Amy Tinsley

Inspired by her hard working father, she helps keep the South Carolina Automotive Council running at full speed

Departments 10 From the Editor 12 Benchmarks/News Hub 62 Career Notes 64 Regional Reports 70 Industry Indicators/Stocks 71 By the Numbers 72 Industry News 74 Index 76 Vintage

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 9

From the Editor

T

echnically, motorcycles are not exactly automobiles. I am aware of this and of the fact that this is a magazine about automobiles, which, according to one definition is “a passenger vehicle designed for operation on ordinary roads and typically having four wheels and a gasoline or diesel internal combustion engine.”

Come to think of it, that definition will soon be dated, in the era of increasing electrification. But for now, we can say that the textbook definition of an automobile makes motorcycles, technically, what I like to call auto-adjacent.

But come on, don’t pretend that you can be interested in cars and not at least a little fascinated by their two-wheeled cousins, which are equally fast, also capable of moving people down the road, and frankly, pretty doggone cool. The way I figure it, you’ve got to appreciate the sheer artistry and engineering in motorcycles if you can see the same qualities in cars. And standing there in the nexus of cars and motorcycles is where you’ll find George Barber, whose Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum gets a large piece of editorial real estate in this issue of Southern Automotive Alliance.

And there are more than a few good reasons we figure you’ll like George Barber’s museum. First, Barber started out as a car guy – he used to race Porsches and win – before he undertook to build the world’s largest motorcycle museum in Birmingham, Alabama. I’ve been there and I have to tell you the museum, the racetrack, the garden (yes, I said garden) and park encompassing it all is a thing of beauty. If you love engines, chrome and things that can take you flying down the pavement at speeds that can make your heart skip a beat, you owe it to yourself to see this museum. Even with the amount of space we devote to it, there is so much more to see there. Trust me.

And as long as we’re in auto-adjacent territory this issue, we look at a phenomenon which is touched on in Barber’s museum, but otherwise mostly a forgotten detour in automotive history – the cyclecar. It’s exactly what you think it is.

You also have to ask yourself – where does the bus fit on your automotive spectrum? Our region is home to a plant that not only makes buses, but invites folks from all over the world to see the electric future through the windows of some mighty interesting public transports. Hint: it’s electric and maybe autonomous.

There are more notable stories in this issue: a great workforce development initiative Kia is involved with in Georgia; what happens when you get the leaders of several automotive manufacturing associations together in one place; profiles on a couple of really engaging association leaders whose states are on fire with automotive developments and a look at the future for the sector in the wake of a looming trade war. You’ll also get a glimpse into important innovations being developed in this region, including one designed to combat the nightmare of hot-car deaths. Also we preview October’s Southern Automotive Conference.

Southern Automotive Alliance is just packed with must-read stories and useful information, whether you run an OEM, own a supplier, work in education or government, or ride a Harley.

By the way, if you’re getting this magazine, why not subscribe? It’s easy and just as free as the magazine itself. Just visit our website, www.southernautomotivealliance.com and click on one of the easy subscription buttons or popups. Drop me a line and let me know how well that worked – or tell me what you think about the magazine and what we ought to be writing about, at npatterson@ pmtpublishing.com.

Nicholas Patterson, Editor Southern Automotive Alliance

To subscribe at no cost and receive future issues via mail, visit southernautomotivealliance.com 10 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

PUBLISHER: Walker Sorrell EDITOR: Nicholas Patterson npatterson@pmtpublishing.com ART DIRECTOR: Rebecca Reeves DESIGN EDITOR: Cathy Still McGowin WEB PRODUCER: Abby Parrott COPY EDITOR : Christine Gordon CONTRIBUTORS Dave Helms, Cara D. Clark, Bill Gerdes, Gail Allyn Short, Henri Hollis, Nancy Henderson, Linda H. Lamb, Carla Caldwell, Michelle Love, Autumn Privett, Megan Boyle, Delene Hill, Kaye Rowell, Jane Nicholes, Mike Kittrell ADMINISTRATION: Molly Lipski Powell CIRCULATION: Anita Miller ACCOUNTING: Keith Crabtree ADVERTISING SALES: Chandler Busby 205-802-6363 Ext. 103 cbusby@pmtpublishing.com DIRECTOR OF AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Mark Singletary msingletary@pmtpublishing.com INTEGRATED MEDIA & EVENTS Sheila Wardy swardy@pmtpublishing.com 2204 Lakeshore Drive, Suite 120 Birmingham, AL 35209 (205) 802-6363 southernautomotivealliance.com T.J. Potts, President PMT Publishing, Inc. 3729 Cottage Hill Rd H • Mobile, AL 36609 pmtpublishing.com • 251.473.6269 Southern Automotive Alliance is published bimonthly by PMT Publishing Co., Inc. Copyright 2018 by PMT Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission prohibited.

Address all correspondence to Southern Automotive Alliance, 3729 Cottage Hill Road, Suite H, Mobile, AL 36609 or 2204 Lakeshore Drive, Suite 120, Birmingham, AL 35209. Phone (251) 473-6269 in Mobile or (205) 802-6363 in Birmingham. FAX in Birmingham is (205) 8026393 and e-mail address is info@pmtpublishing. com. Letters to the editor are welcome or e-mail to npatterson@pmtpublishing.com. Please query the editor before sending unsolicited articles or photographs.

Moving? Please note US Postal Service will not forward magazines mailed through their Bulk Mail unit. Please send old label along with your new address 4-6 weeks prior to moving.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 11

TEXT BY: DAVE HELMS

Industry Benchmarks

Volvo’s First U.S. Plant Now Open In South Carolina

A

mid a crowd of corporate executives, VIPs and newly minted autoworkers, Volvo Cars opened its Charleston, South Carolina manufacturing plant in June, marking its first such facility in the United States.

The plant is gearing for production by this fall of the new Volvo S60 premium mid-size sports sedan, based on the company’s Scalable Product Architecture platform. By 2021 the factory will also build the next generation of the Volvo XC90 full-sized SUV. Cars built at the plant will eventually create 4,000 jobs, and be sold both in the domestic U.S. market and abroad. Roughly 1,500 people will be employed by the end of 2018.

“The Charleston plant establishes the U.S. as our third home market,” says Håkan Samuelsson, president of Volvo Cars. “The sedan segment and the SPA platform’s proven ability to boost profitability offer significant growth opportunities for Volvo Cars in the U.S. and globally.”

The plant creates new leadership at the site, with Jeff Moore taking over day-to-day operations from Katarina

N E W S

H U B

HAGO AUTOMOTIVE GROWING German automotive supplier Hago Automotive announced in June that it would double its automated stamping facility in Iuka, Mississippi with a $4 million investment that would create 60 jobs within four years. Hago supplies parts for BMW. The upgrade should be complete by spring 2019.

CHINA’S STUDYING YOU China in July begins a program in which RFID technology will begin making its way into cars made in that country. After a year the chips, readable by sensors along the road and said to be about monitoring traffic, will become compulsory. Critics note that the while it’s less precise than GPS, the chips still offer a wealth of tracking information to the Ministry of Public Security.

12 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Fjording, who will stay with Volvo in another capacity.

Moore, now Volvo’s vice president of manufacturing in the Americas, has 33 years of automotive experience including time at Toyota Motor North America.

Auto industry observers note that Volvo’s plant opening was fortuitous given the Trump administration’s efforts to impose tariffs on automakers and the raw materials they use.

“We are a bit worried about the trade environment we see today in the United States,” Karin Olofsdotter, Sweden’s ambassador to the U.S., told news outlets the week in June that the S60 was unveiled. “We are worried about steel and aluminum tariffs and we are extremely worried about possible car tariffs.”

Samuelsson noted that the plant’s $1.1 billion investment was based on an open, fair-trade system that will give the company a strong foundation for growth.

The South Carolina build follows Volvo Cars’ global manufacturing strategy, “Build where you sell.” Volvo also has two manufacturing plants and an engine plant in Europe, three car factories and an engine plant in China, and assembly plants in India and Malaysia.

The new Charleston facility includes an office building for up to 300 staff from R&D, purchasing, quality and sales. The plant will produce 150,000 cars per year at full capacity. The site occupies 1,600 acres and the building space covers 2.3 million square feet. Construction on the facility broke ground in 2015.

Volvo plans to build plug-in hybrid cars at all of its car plants globally. In 2017 Volvo Cars was the first global automaker to announce its strategy that from 2019 all new models will be electrified. The company has been in operation since 1927. n

TENNESSEE EXAMPLE Automotive companies seeking to argue against President Trump’s automotive tariffs have plenty of evidence to support the notion that they’re heavily invested in the United States.

Several media outlets cited Nissan’s $11.8 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing. Nissan employs 22,000 people directly and operates the country’s biggest vehicle production facility in Smyrna, Tennessee.

PERILS OF SELF-DRIVING A self-driving Uber that struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona had a driver as part of the testing program, and police reports now indicate that driver was distracted by Hulu moments before the impact.

Reuters reported that, according to a Tempe Police Department report, the driver was watching The Voice.

Use Your Phone Soon To Lock, Unlock And Start Your Car

I

t’s a feature every automaker wants—the ability to enter, exit and start your vehicle with your smart phone, along with being able to grant access to your ride remotely. The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) announced the publication this summer of its Digital Key Release 1.0 specs, available to all CCC members to allow for a standardized solution that lets drivers download a digital key onto their smart device for any vehicle.

The consortium, based in Beaverton, Oregon, has been working for some time on seamless mobile device-to-vehicle connectivity. The Digital Key specification provides a generalized

S

deployment method that allows vehicle OEMs to securely transfer a digital key implementation to a smart device, using an existing Trusted Service Manager (TSM) infrastructure.

Digital Key leverages NFC distance bounding and a direct link to the secure element of the device, assuring the highest security level for vehicle access. Release 1.0 provides a standardized solution, and several new companies have joined the organization, believing in the Digital Key vision and future.

A Digital Key Release 2.0 is now in the works, with collaboration from Apple, Audi, BMW, General Motors, Hyundai, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung, and Volkswagen, and core members including ALPS Electric, Continental Automotive GmbH, DENSO, Gemalto, NXP, and Qualcomm Incorporated. Release 2.0 is targeted for completion in early 2019 and will offer a standardized authentication protocol between the vehicle and smart device.

“BMW sees high value in a standardized digital key ecosystem driven by the CCC,” says Alexander Maier, BMW AG. “Leveraging all benefits of Release 2.0 will enable a scalable solution, interoperable with all smart devices and vehicles delivering a superior user experience to our customers.” n

Steel Dynamics To Unroll $140M Galvanizing Line In Mississippi

teel Dynamics Inc. announced plans in late June to expand its offering of value-added flat roll steel products with a new galvanizing line in Columbus, Mississippi. The company will spend about $140 million and create 45 new jobs, adding a third galvanizing line at its Columbus Flat Roll Division.

With the addition, Steel Dynamics will have nine value-added galvanizing lines located throughout the eastern United States, with a total annual coating capacity of about 3.8 million tons. The company is also acquiring Michigan-based Heartland Steel Products, after which it will have 10 flat roll steel galvanizing lines with approximately 4.2 million tons of coating capacity.

“This investment is another step of further diversification into higher-margin products for our Columbus Flat Roll Division,” says Steel Dynamics CEO Mark D. Millett. “The addition of a third galvanizing facility will allow Columbus to serve existing customers, as well as new customers in the region, and will also further reduce its exposure to the more cyclical hot roll market.” The new galvanizing line will have an annual coating capability. n

PAINT THAT HEALS Panoz, the Georgia manufacturer which produces the Esperante sports car with a custom-built 6.2 liter V8, now offers selfhealing paint as a standard feature on all its vehicles.

Granted, the Esperante Spyder, its most affordable car, starts at $159,000, but for that you get Feynlab’s Self-Heal Plus coating, which uses heat from the sun to make light scratches and swirl marks disappear.

FAREWELL, HONDA ASIMO He probably should have seen it coming, given those Boston Dynamics robots who are opening doors and doing backflips over obstacles. Nikkei Asian Review reported in July that Honda plans to officially retire Asimo, its long-running bipedal robot attraction.

TOYOTA GRABS GRAB Toyota will acquire a $1 billion stake in Southeast Asia’s Grab

in the biggest investment by a carmaker into a ride-hailing firm, according to Reuters. Grab, now 6 years old, will be worth more than $10 billion after the acquisition.

MAKING ROOM FOR EQ Mercedes is reportedly yanking its PHEV C-Class, GLC and GLEClass models from the market to prepare for the arrival of nextgen replacements due out in 2019. New EQ-branded models with the Mercedes nine-speed

transmission and electric motor will replace the outgoing models, according to CNET. PREPPING FOR CARBON Japan-based Teijin Limited announced in June it has broken ground on 440 acres in Greenwood, South Carolina for a carbon fiber production site worth $600 million that should create 220 jobs by 2030.

The site will produce Pyromex carbon fiber for a variety of

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 13

BE N C HM A R K S

New-Vehicle Quality Up 4 Percent In New Survey

T

he J.D. Power 2018 U.S. Initial Quality Study held good news for automakers with its recent release, showing new-vehicle quality at its best level ever, up 4 percent from 2017.

Carmakers have now seen four consecutive years of gains in this most crucial of J.D. Power studies, based on responses from 75,712 purchasers and lessees of new 2018 model-year vehicles, 90 days after they take possession. Dealers take the study so seriously that they’ve been known to ask new owners for the chance to make things right before being given a less-than-perfect score.

The Initial Quality Study is based on 233 questions, split up into eight vehicle categories so that manufacturers can better use the information to improve their products. It was conducted from February to May of this year.

This year’s quality improvements included decreased wind noise and fewer paint glitches, along with seating and vehicle interior design upgrades. On the flip side, audio/communication/ entertainment/navigation systems scored the most complaints from new-vehicle owners, likely due to the changing nature of automotive electronics.

Of the vehicles covered in the 2018 study, from 25 countries of origin, the Porsche 911 earned the best score of any model, with the lowest overall problem level (48 PP100) of any model this year. That’s also the best score recorded in the 2013-2018 study class.

Genesis ranked highest this year in overall initial quality for an automotive company/division, followed by Kia and Hyundai, while Mazda saw the most overall improvement as a company.

The U.S. Initial Quality Study made its debut in 1987 and has been through four iterations. n

N E W S

H U B

uses, including automotive carbon brakes and gas diffusion elements of fuel cells. This is the largest initial capital investment that a company has ever created in Greenwood, according to the company.

DENSO EXPANDING Denso Air Systems Michigan Inc. plans an expansion worth $3.5 million at its facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where it will hire 45 more employees

to help produce aluminum HVAC pipes and assemblies for the automotive industry. A 48,000-square-foot addition will be part of the plan.

NEW COROLLA COMING Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi continued work this summer on a new visitor and training center in Blue Springs, Mississippi, as the company moves toward building the 12th generation Corolla. Toyota will

14 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Alabama’s Shoals Region Ramps Up For Mazda Toyota

C

onstruction starts this fall on Mazda Toyota’s $1.6 billion plant in Huntsville and the supply chain is already starting to form in the surrounding area. One example is nearby Lauderdale County, where officials are marketing a 100,000-square-foot building in Rogersville being built with a supply company in mind.

The metal structure, in the Rogersville Industrial Park near Northwest Shoals Regional Airport, has a reinforced floor and a maximum height of 40 feet, according to the Shoals Economic Development Authority, which owns what’s formally known as the Shoals Research Airpark Spec Building.

The Mazda Toyota plant is on schedule to open in 2021, with a projected capacity of 300,000 cars a year.

“Industry doesn’t wait, so if we want a shot at landing one of these suppliers, we have to be ready,” County Commissioner Roger Garner told the TimesDaily newspaper in Florence.

According to the Shoals Economic Development website, the building is expandable to 200,000 square feet and can potentially be built-out to tenant specifications. This property is 3,000 feet from Main Line Rail and eight miles from the Port of Florence, with U.S. 72 Alt three miles away. n

invest $170 million on the project, using its vaunted Toyota New Global Architecture that enables Toyota products to be more swiftly designed and globally competitive.

ZF CALLS OUT TARIFFS The ZF Company in June protested the idea of U.S. tariffs, specifically citing the transmissions the company manufactures in South Carolina and how trade barriers would

complicate supply lines for such parts going to Europe and other destinations. ZF CEO WolfHenning Scheider called the proposed tariffs a “provocation.”

MORRISON EXPANDS Tennessee-based Morrison Industries in June opened a new 50,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, which in the next two years will employ 200 workers to make packaging

Brake It Down To Keep Kids Safe

W

hile driving is a rite of passage for many American teens, the reality is that young drivers can be a risky demographic. Chevrolet and DoSomething.org have come up with an idea to make them safer.

That idea involves Batman.

Or at least, it involves the young actor David Mazouz who plays the young Bruce Wayne on the Fox prequel Gotham.

Mazouz also stars in a humorous video PSA designed to shine a light on the kinds of kids who might be in the car. It’s for the “Brake it Down” safe driving campaign. Here’s an excerpt from their press release: “Traffic crashes are a leading cause of death for young people in the US. No surprise, research shows that warnings from parents and scare tactics from ads are not enough,” says Aria Finger, CEO and Chief Old Person of DoSomething.org. “Know what works? Peer-to-peer intervention! That’s why we’re thrilled to partner with Chevrolet on ‘Brake It Down.’ This campaign engages young people to be part of the solution instead of talking down to them.”

Mazouz demonstrates an almost Peter Sellers-like talent for inhabiting the roles of four different kinds of teenagers who might be either behind the wheel or in the passenger seat. The

idea is that knowing the personality of the other person in the car could be lifesaving. “How well do you know your best friend?

What’s their favorite snack on a road trip? What musician are they most likely to play in the vehicle? And what if answering these questions could keep your best friend safe on the road?” the campaign asks, providing a “Brake It Down” quiz which will give those who take the test “customized tips to share with friends and keep them safe as a driver, passenger, or pedestrian.”

By texting BRAKE to 38383, young people can take the quiz and “Brake It Down” for their friends between June 15 and September 15. By sharing anti-speeding tactics with friends, they’ll keep friends safe *and* enter to win a $5,000 scholarship from DoSomething and Chevrolet. n

Another State Allows Public Road Tests For Autonomous Vehicles

O

hio, on the border of the Southern Automotive Alliance and a powerful automaking state, in May became the latest to allow testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads.

On May 9 Ohio Governor John Kasich signed an executive order giving a green light for such testing on both autonomous cars and trucks, a move that could attract more auto tech companies to the state.

Kasich’s motives aren’t just about keeping up with other states or trying to attract good-paying jobs. Because of a family tragedy, he’s keenly interested in anything that could improve highway safety. His parents were killed in a 1987 accident caused by a drunk driver.

products for Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.

of automotive parts to improve vehicle fuel efficiency.

STAMPING FORWARD Automotive supplier Unipress announced in June it would spend $40 million for an expansion of its parts stamping production facility in Steele, Alabama. A new hot stamping process will be part of the mix, according to Unipress President Kiyotaka Kawashima. One purpose of the upgrade is to lighten the weight

BOWLING GREEN METALFORMING LLC of Kentucky in July announced a new expansion for its more than one-million-square-foot facility at the Kentucky Transpark. The company employs more than 1,600 people to make truck frame assemblies and engine cradles.

The subsidiary of Canada’s Magna International will spend $14.2

The ground rules Kasich set down for Ohio forbid communities from passing a hodgepodge of local laws that would try to block the statewide effort, noting that such an arrangement would be unworkable.

“Some people are going to be nervous. I mean, would you want to put your kids in the car, would you want to put your spouse in the car? Well, you have to test this stuff and I think we have enough guardrails around this.”

Companies seeking to test autonomous vehicles would need to register with the state, comply with state and federal guidelines and comply with all traffic laws. The rules also require that the holder of a valid driver’s license be behind the wheel, monitoring the vehicle throughout all testing. n

million to add equipment and hire 27 more employees. Customers include General Motors and Ford Motor Co. KIA GROOVES REPORT For the fourth consecutive year, Kia was recognized as the number one non-premium brand by J.D. Power in the 2018 Initial Quality Study, with a reported 72 problems per 100 vehicles. Kia saw segmentleading performances from the

Sorento (Midsize SUV) and Rio (Small Car). Kia manufactures in West Point, Georgia.

TARIFFS: LOOMING DISASTER? A Money-CNN report in July estimated that almost $300 billion of U.S. exports could be at risk of retaliatory tariffs if the Trump administration decides to penalize automobile imports from around the world. The story noted global retaliation against U.S. tariffs on auto imports would

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 15

BE N C HM A R K S

Hyundai Guns Its Engine Manufacturing With $388M Addition

E

arly summer has been a busy season for Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama. The company almost simultaneously announced it would invest $388 million to build a new plant for manufacturing engine heads while also rolling out its redesigned 2019 Santa Fe, with workers and local leaders joining in a parade through the plant led by the new model.

The Santa Fe introduction has been a big milestone at the 3,200-worker plant in Montgomery, as Hyundai aims to satisfy the strong market for SUVs by producing 84,000 of the new models this year.

The new engine investment, meanwhile, will prepare the facility for the nextgeneration Theta III, which will require more technologies, components and programming. The capital investment, which drew $59 million in state incentives, will create 50 jobs in the area with an average annual salary of $52,000. Alabama offered an investment credit of $58.2 million over 10 years to the plant, that being a credit against the companies’ income and utilities taxes, and a jobs credit of $948,672 over 10 years in the form of a cash rebate based on a percentage of payroll. The incentives were offered through the 2015 Alabama Jobs act.

Hyundai officials say they will spend about $40 million to build a 260,000-squarefoot building to house engine head machining equipment. Construction on that building is set to be complete by November. The new building will also free up space to expand engine assembly lines in the existing facility.

Theta III engine production for Sonata sedans and Santa Fe crossovers is expected to commence by mid-2019. The plant is still building 2.0-liter Nu engines for the Elantra.

“With our latest expansion, HMMA continues to show its strong commitment to the people of Montgomery and the people of Alabama,” Hyundai President and CEO Dong Ryeol Choi said at a ceremony to mark the expansion. “Hyundai is continuing its track record of investing in new manufacturing technologies to ensure the longterm success of our only U.S. assembly plant.” n

N E W S

H U B

have a much bigger impact on the American economy than the backlash provoked by the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs this year.

PROJECTS SLOWING DOWN Alabama Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield told the media recently that President Trump’s trade policies are too argumentative. He urges a conciliatory approach, saying the state has car deals in the works

that have slowed down recently.

“The longer this drags out, the more danger there is that we’ll see a real drag on our economy.

We’re going to see Alabama lose jobs, and that’s not acceptable,” Canfield told Bloomberg.

AUTOMAKERS UNITE AGAINST TARIFFS Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Hyundai Motor Co., all with plants in the Southern automotive sector,

16 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Paying From Your Car Without Rolling Down A Window

H

yundai Motor America and automobile software supplier Xevo are working together on Xevo Market, a “merchant-to-driver commerce platform” that uses the vehicle’s infotainment screen to pay for such things as parking, gas and soft drinks with in-vehicle technology.

The system would securely store credit card or PayPal information.

Hyundai says that due to industry distracted driver concerns, the features might not be available when the vehicle is moving.

Xevo, with offices in Japan and Bellevue, Washington, partners with automakers and Tier 1 OEMs to rapidly and safely deliver datahandling architecture. Its connected car products integrate artificial intelligence to seamlessly connect drivers and their vehicles to mobile applications, content and services. n

spoke as a coalition in June to warn against proposed tariffs on imported vehicles. The move threatens U.S. jobs and industry efforts on self-driving cars, the companies said.

JAMA RILED The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) has been vocal in recent weeks to media outlets, taking tariff plans to task as Washington and Tokyo look at their balance

of trade and manufacturing.

JAMA has previously noted that its companies have invested heavily in U.S. operations, particularly in the South.

SUBSCRIPTIONS LAUNCHED Daimler AG’s MercedesBenz division has launched car subscription services in Nashville and Philadelphia, using app-based methods to give customers an alternative to traditional car ownership.

Nissan To Host ‘Innovation Alley’ At Event In Nashville

L

aunch Tennessee, a public-private partnership that fosters entrepreneurship across the state, announced in June that Nissan North America will sponsor “Innovation Alley” at Nashville’s 36|86 Entrepreneurship Festival.

The festival, described as the Southeast’s premier gathering of founders, investors and ecosystem builders, happens Aug. 29-30 in downtown Nashville.

“Innovation Alley” will offer an interactive experience for attendees and the public to experience Nissan Intelligent Mobility — the company’s vision for changing how vehicles are powered, driven and integrated into a connected society.

“The automotive industry is evolving more rapidly than any other period in its history, and Nissan is focused on fostering collaboration with entrepreneurs and startups that can become leaders in the future innovation economy,” says Scott Becker, senior vice president, Administration, Nissan North America.

Maarten Sierhuis, chief technology director, Nissan Research Center Silicon Valley, will participate in a fireside chat discussing the future of intelligent mobility. Sierhuis leads multiple teams of researchers working on the development of future autonomous vehicles, connectivity and humanmachine interaction and interface.

“We are thrilled to have Nissan’s participation and support at 36|86,” says Charlie Brock, CEO of Launch Tennessee. “The company is the leading automotive manufacturer in the state of Tennessee, and we’re excited to showcase their cutting-edge work around intelligent mobility and connectivity.”

36|86 runs across four of Nashville’s hottest downtown venues. For more information on the festival agenda and to purchase a pass, visit attend3686.com.n

The service is said to have three pricing ranges, from $1,095 to $2,995 a month and lets subscribers swap models frequently to enhance the driving experience.

1,000 construction jobs. By 2020, company officials hope the mill’s production will be 300,000 tons of aluminum alloy sheet and plate a year, primarily for the automotive industry.

KENTUCKY STEELS UP Kentucky officials in June held a ceremony to mark initial construction of a $1.5 billion, 600-job aluminum rolling mill near Ashland. Braidy Industries says the work will initially create

HEROIC HARLEY A 1918 Harley-Davidson Model J motorcycle, built for the U.S. Expeditionary Force and languishing in France since the end of World War I, arrived at the Port of Mobile recently. It will

be on display at the GulfQuest museum until June 24, when it will be taken to Jacksonville to begin a 9,000-mile trek across the U.S., including a stop at the Wisconsin factory where it was built.

NEW MAZDA CEO As Mazda Motor Corp. prepares to build its new manufacturing plant with Toyota in Huntsville, Alabama, the company will be operating with a new CEO. As

of June, Akira Marumoto is the company’s chief executive officer.

He aims to increase annual sales to 2 million vehicles by 2024.

SUPPLIERS RUSH IN A planned $1.6 billion automotive plant in the Huntsville-annexed part of Limestone County, Alabama is generating interest in nearby Morgan Center Business Park near Hartselle and other spaces where the supply chain might blossom.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 17

B E N C HM A R K S

Michelin Releases Diversity, Inclusion Report For North America

S

outh Carolina-based Michelin North America in May released its first diversity and inclusion report and also honored South Carolina Governor Richard W. Riley with the Michelin Award for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion.

The 16-page report, featuring voices and views from Michelin employees, highlights the company’s emphasis on building a diverse and inclusive workplace for more than 20,000 employees in the United States and Canada.

“We understand that when customers trust in our brand, they expect the excellence of our products and services should also be reflected in Michelin’s dedication to our employees and commitment to our communities,” says Scott Clark, chairman and president of Michelin North America.

Riley, a former U.S. Secretary of Education, was lauded at an event at the company’s Greenville headquarters. “For more than 50 years, Dick Riley has been a driving force behind positive change in South Carolina, where Michelin North America began U.S. operations in 1975,” says Herb Johnson, chief diversity and inclusion officer of Michelin North America. “In addition to supporting Michelin’s growth over the years, Mr. Riley has set the standard for leaders to leverage the rich diversity of the state and foster an inclusive environment for all through the Diversity Leaders Initiative.”

With 19 facilities across the United States and Canada, Michelin builds workforce by attracting high-school and college students with hands-on learning experiences through its Youth Apprenticeship program, Technical Scholars program and other internships and cooperatives. n

China’s Import Duty Cuts Benefit Southern Automakers

C

hina’s Finance Ministry announced in late May it would cut its import duty by July 1 on passenger cars to 15 percent, a move that rippled through the Southeast by way of sending stock prices upward for European and Asian automakers.

Officials with the Finance Ministry in Beijing pointed to an effort to aid competition and reduce prices as being behind the decision. Others saw the lowering of import duties from the previous 25 percent level to be one of several moves China and the United States were making to avoid an all-out trade war. While European and Asian automakers saw stock prices edge up immediately, Tesla Inc. and Ford Motor Co., which long have targeted the world’s second largest economy for company growth, are expected to benefit.

Tata Motors Ltd., owner of Jaguar Land Rover, and BMW saw their biggest intraday gains in more than a month after the announcement, but another major winner was the Trump administration. President Trump has bemoaned what he sees as holes in the balance of trade between China and the U.S. since well before running for office. n

N E W S

H U B

TRASHING TARIFFS Alabama Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield went on Fox News in mid-July to wave a caution flag over President Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, saying they could cool the region’s red-hot auto industry.

“We end up exporting about $10.9 billion worth of value in vehicles to 88 countries across the globe,” Canfield said. “So we’re concerned that a tariff war, or even if we want to call it

a tariff skirmish, potentially can cause disruptions in terms of the supply chain.”

NEW STRUCTURE Hyundai and Kia announced a reshaping of their structure, with regional headquarters in the U.S., Europe and India, to increase autonomy for each region and shift the mix of planning, marketing and sales.

Hyundai has a plant in Alabama.

Kia produces vehicles in Georgia.

18 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

PEACE OUT WEST Colorado in June joined 13 other states in adopting California’s clear car emissions standards, a move that’s allowed under the Clean Air Act. The Trump Administration is working to roll back national air standards, freezing limits on greenhouse gas emissions at model year 2022 levels.

HIGHLY AMERICAN HONDA Honda scored highly on the annual “Made in America” car list with three models in the top 20, thanks in part to its factory in Lincoln, Alabama. The Chevrolet Traverse, meanwhile, was this year’s model judged to have the highest percentage of U.S. content.

TESLA GOES CHINESE Tesla announced plans in mid-July to construct a factory

Lawsuit Seeks To Halt Toyota-Mazda Plant Over Threatened Fish

V

eteran news watchers in Alabama probably weren’t surprised when word came that a lawsuit had been filed by an environmental group to halt the building of the Toyota-Mazda plant outside Huntsville.

Moving enough dirt to create a $1.6 billion car factory will stir up both local wildlife and the groups that protect them.

In this case the creature in question is the spring pygmy sunfish, said to be found only outside Huntsville in the Beaverdam Spring and Creek watershed.

Representing the sunfish is the Center for Biological Diversity, which in June filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying it wasn’t doing its job in protecting the fish.

“We are in an extinction crisis,” the center’s Noah Greenwald told Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech of thedrive.com. “If we are going to stop this extinction crisis, we have to stop it where it is happening.”

The current extinction rate, Greenwald says, is 1,000 times the norm with dozens of species going extinct every day. “If we don’t save this species, that is one more gone and it can’t be reversed,” says Greenwald.

Toyota officials have signaled their willingness to work with those involved to address the problem. Car plants in the U.S. have in recent years sought to be more environmentally friendly, particularly on the grounds where they operate. n

Research Grant To Study Job Impact Of Automated Vehicles

T

he Toyota Research Institute will donate $75,000 to the Michigan-based American Center for Mobility’s research effort on assessing the effect of automated vehicles on driving-related jobs.

Preparing the Workforce for Automated Vehicles is a collaborative study being worked on by ACM, Michigan State University and Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Due out later this year, the study will seek to explain impacts on the workforce and lay the foundation for a training template for commercial drivers for the future, especially in the areas of freight and package delivery, taxi and ride-hailing. It seeks to ensure that job skills evolve with new automated vehicle technology and professional drivers can remain productively employed.

“TRI is committed to advancing automated vehicle technology in ways that improve society and individual well-being, and we need to better understand the impact this may have on future jobs and employment,” says Dr. Gill Pratt, TRI CEO and Toyota Motor Corporation Fellow.

Toyota Research Institute is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor North America. The American Center for Mobility is a nonprofit testing, education and product development facility for future mobility and one of 10 U.S. DOT designated Automated Vehicle Proving Grounds in the U.S. n

in China capable of building 500,000 vehicles a year.

According to Bloomberg, which gave the initial report, the company will also raise prices for the Model S and Model X in China in anticipation of a trade war with the U.S. The factory will be located in Shanghai.

1,188,832 vehicles since the beginning of the year. The company also saw its strongestselling quarter from April to June, delivering 594,528 vehicles.

For the first half of 2018, unit sales were 3.9 percent above the previous half-year mark, the first half of 2017.

2016 with purchasers of nearly 500,000 polluting diesel vehicles.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the settlement delivered reasonable relief to class members that compared well to successful individual litigation.

BENZ MARKS BEST HALF Mercedes-Benz just marked its best half-year of sales since its bookkeeping began, moving

VW STILL ON HOOK A federal appeals court in July upheld Volkswagen’s $10.03 billion settlement made in

BMW CHARTS ANTI-TARIFF COURSE The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, Carolina reported

in mid-July that BMW will likely move production of some of its SUVs out of the United States to avoid Trump administration tariffs. The paper said BMW had agreed with its Chinese partner, Brilliance Automotive Group Holdings, to increase Chinese production of BMW vehicles to 520,000 vehicles a year by 2019.

BMW operates an assembly plant in Greer, South Carolina.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 19

EXECUTIVE Q&A INTERVIEW BY: NANCY HENDERSON / PHOTOS BY: SARAH ABELL

Strength in Numbers Five industry leaders discuss the new Southern Automotive Manufacturers Alliance.

If one of us succeeds, we all succeed. The thing about Nissan is they’ve always invited people into their plants to learn from each other, so that’s ingrained in our culture at Toyota. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here with SAMA. —Amy Moffatt, SAWF Left to Right: Ashley Frye, Rick Walker, Lex Lemmers, Amy Moffatt, Ron Davis 20 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

There is a competition between the states in economic development, to win new plants and those kinds of things. But while we have our own OEMs in each state, with a supply base that goes along with it, now that we have SAMA we’ve become Southernized with tying everything together. The needs in Alabama are kind of the same needs as in Tennessee, in Mississippi, in Georgia. —Ron Davis, AAMA

A

t last year’s Southern Automotive Conference in Birmingham, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced the formation of the Southern Automotive Manufacturers Alliance by the AMAs of Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia. Also associated with the new, cooperative organization are the Southern Automotive Women’s Forum, the South Carolina Automotive Council and the Kentucky Automotive Industry Association.

Recently, five SAMA leaders— Ron Davis, president of AAMA and SAMA; Ashley Frye, executive director of TAMA; Lex Lemmers, president of MAMA; Rick Walker, president of GAMA; and Amy Moffatt, president of SAWF—gathered to talk about what SAMA means for the region.

Q: Why create SAMA when you already have industry organizations for each state?

A: Davis: What we recognized is the need to protect our brand. We were already working together. We talk to each other on a weekly basis. We’re friends.

We cherish that friendship, we cherish that partnership, and we wanted to have structure around how we work together and move the Southern automotive industry to help it continue to grow and get stronger. We had one particular case in our southern region where someone took our attendee list from our Southern Automotive Conference and attempted to do an event. That’s the kind of thing we want to make sure that we [avoid] to protect our brand.

Lemmers: It also gives us the opportunity, together, to prepare for our ever-growing Southern Automotive Conference.

Q: Who does SAMA interact with?

A: Davis: We interact heavily with the top CEOs in the southern region for the OEMs and the top executives for all the supply base, and we also interact very actively with the top legislative people and the governors of each state.

Q: How has this organization been received by the OEMs, suppliers and others in the Southern automotive sector?

A: Frye: We are working with various organizations of IMCP (Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership), an organization that is funded in part by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), and looking at how we can use SAMA as a platform to collaborate with the various programs that are available. I’ll give you an example. In the past, when there were federal monies available to support automotive manufacturing in any kind of capacity—a facility, training or otherwise—states individually have gone after grants. And that has been a real hit-or-miss proposition because it looks very localized in terms of the payback or the benefit that the federal government would receive. But by engaging an organization like SAMA to go after grants that would influence and benefit the region, it would more likely be better received on the part of the government.

Moffatt: If one of us succeeds, we all succeed. The thing about Toyota [where she is a senior manager] is they’ve always invited people into their plants to learn from each other, so that’s ingrained in our culture at Toyota. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here with SAMA. Q: How is SAMA organized and how does it work?

A: Walker: SAMA is an incorporated nonprofit membership organization.

Right now, there are three founding members—Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi—and an apprentice member, Georgia. And then there are also three affiliate members: Southern Automotive Women’s Forum, as well as the Kentucky Auto Industry Association and the South Carolina Automotive Council.

Moffatt: Members could be executives from organizations, but not necessarily.

It’ll be everybody representing all of our industry partners at all levels. It’s similar to the Southern Automotive Women’s Forum. We have many executives from OEMs and suppliers, but also from service providers.

Q: What has SAMA accomplished since its launch?

A: Lemmers: I think the most important part we have accomplished is getting the formal organization structure in place.

We have our communication channels in place, we have the roles in place to get ourselves now to the next level of action.

Walker: We’re starting to act in every way like a functioning corporation.

We’re starting to take on an organic life.

We’re farther ahead now than I think we expected, which is great. We’re getting together once a month just to talk about helping each other.

Q: What should we expect from SAMA in the next year?

A: Davis: I think you’re going to see

I think the most important part we have accomplished is getting the formal organization structure in place.

We have our communication channels in place, we have the roles in place to get ourselves now to the next level of action.

—Lex Lemmers, MAMA

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 21

E X E C U TI V E

Q& A

We make more cars in the South than anywhere else in the country. And second, the South is the third largest GDP in the world. So what we do here is really having a major effect.

—Rick Walker, GAMA more visibility of this organization. You’re going to see the continued growth and expansion of our Southern Automotive Conference. You’re going to see us being better and better coordinated from state to state. We’re going to engage heavily in workforce development.

Lemmers: On a state level, we had our own specific events for our members, and what we tried to organize now on a SAMA level is to overlap those agendas.

With bigger events on a certain topic that our members from the different, adjoining states could be interested in, they are not forced to select one over the other.

Q: What are the biggest challenges to the automotive industry in your individual states?

A: (All, simultaneously): Workforce.

Frye: Our southern region is growing and expanding—suppliers, OEMs—so when they pull people from educational institutions, out of high school, through community college, career tech centers, they also pull from other suppliers and other industries. We don’t want to damage the southern region by pulling all good workers in automotive, and we also want to have enough good workers to support the growth and expansion.

So the challenge is managing workforce development so that everyone wins and everyone has what they need. It’s a big, big task.

Lemmers: I think there are two elements to workforce development. One is the general availability of employees and associates in our processes, but also the complexity of the technology being applied in automotive is increasing and requires more skills, and a higher level of skills, particularly for trades for maintenance groups.

Moffatt: Obviously females are underrepresented in the automotive industry in general, so one of the challenges,

especially in the South, is that for a lot of the kids coming up now, which is when you have to start engaging them to get that interest, their parents weren’t around the automotive industry. So we’re trying to educate females, particularly, on the excitement of working in the industry and that we do have role models now in the industry that have thrived and are in positions very high in their organizations.

We need to show that to these young ladies coming up so that we can have them enter the workforce in the southern automotive industry.

Q: Will SAMA address other diversity issues?

A: Frye: I think an objective of our whole region is to not just talk about but embrace diversity and provide networking opportunities, training opportunities, exposure opportunities.

We’re going to need that to be successful.

Not only do we want to bring more females into the industry, but a diversity of cultures too. Look at our companies that we have; they’re from multiple countries. Dave Fernandes was the keynote speaker at our diversity conference [the day before the interview], and I believe he said that they speak 20 different languages in his [Toyota] plant in Huntsville, Alabama.

Q: Are the challenges in the South different from those in the U.S. auto industry as a whole?

A: Davis: Not every part of the country is growing like the southern region is. I’m not saying they’re not without their workforce challenges, but ours is unique because, I think, of the magnitude of the growth.

22 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Frye: There’s a need for manpower.

In Tennessee there are 135,000-plus Tennesseans employed in the automotive industry, from the OEMs to the 900plus automotive suppliers. With that there’s the growth, of course, and that’s part of what we’re engaged with, with SAMA. But when you get boomers that are retiring, you’ve got to have that replenishment pipeline in place as well.

So the scale of it is quite large. It’s not a mom-and-pop issue we’re talking about. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people.

Walker: We make more cars in the South than anywhere else in the country.

And second, the South is the third largest GDP in the world. So what we do here is really having a major effect.

Lemmers: It’s also still relatively new.

There’s not really any history of the automotive industry in the South. We’re growing fast, so in particular the school part still requires a level of attention.

Q: How will you avoid competition among your states as you represent SAMA? A: Davis: There is a competition between the states in economic development, to win new plants and those kinds of things. But while we have our own OEMs in each state, with a supply base that goes along with it, now that we have SAMA we’ve become Southernized with tying everything together. The needs in Alabama are kind of the same needs as in Tennessee, in Mississippi, in Georgia. So we’re able to better communicate and ensure that we facilitate development of those responses necessary to help our industry.

Walker: The fact that we can come together now as one group... there’s strength in that number, and that’s going to catch the attention of the federal officials reviewing our grant applications. It’s going to be hard to turn down seven states. n

The challenge is managing workforce development so that everyone wins and everyone has what they need.

It’s a big, big task. —Ashley Frye, TAMA

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 23

S O U T H E R N AU T O M OT I V E C O N F E R E N C E All images from SAC 2017

CONNECTIONS THAT DRIVE BUSINESS

Southern Automotive Conference 2018 – A Preview SAC 2018 is expected to break attendance records with 1,800 attendees and 300 exhibitors

T

he Southern Automotive Conference (SAC) Oct. 3-5 at Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta is aiming at becoming an unforgettable experience. The event will provide networking opportunities, world-class speakers and breakout sessions designed to fuel careers and drive business forward. (The event planning division of PMT Publishing, publisher of this magazine, is planning and managing SAC 2018 for the Georgia Automotive Manufacturers Association.)

Organizers expect more than 1,800 attendees, 300 exhibitors and a dozenplus foreign manufacturer pavilions, which would make the event the largest

TEXT BY: CARLA CALDWELL

SAC conference to date. The 2017 recordsetting conference in Birmingham, Alabama, attracted 1,200 registered attendees and more than 180 exhibitors.

The event’s goals call for building on the success of previous Southern Automotive Conferences by adding new features and continuing to improve the experience for attendees.

The SAC is presented each year by the automotive manufacturing associations of Alabama (AAMA), Mississippi (MAMA), Tennessee (TAMA) and GAMA. The Kentucky Automotive Industry Association (KAIA), South Carolina Automotive Council (SCAC), and Southern Automotive Women’s

24 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Forum (SAWF) are affiliate members of SAC. The premier sponsor for SAC 2018 is KIA Motors Manufacturing Georgia.

“The conference is an 11-year tradition now, and the four of us in the Southern Automotive Manufacturers Alliance (SAMA) feel it’s an obligation to improve every year,” says Rick Walker, a patent attorney and president, CEO and founder of GAMA. “Continuously improving is in our DNA. We are passionate about putting together something special. We want people to say, ‘If I didn’t come here, I never would have seen this.’”

The South is the fastest-growing region in North America for

automobile manufacturing and has the third largest gross domestic product in the world, says Walker, a Detroit native who moved to Georgia in 1993. “We make more cars in the South than in any other part of the country. With that backdrop, we will showcase what we have going on in our industry. We are innovating a lot.”

Connecting is key to continued forward momentum, Walker says.

“The conference will connect attendees with what they come to see — technology, innovation and industry leaders. We’ll provide ways to renew contacts, and to create and cultivate relationships with some of the biggest players in the automotive field today.”

The event has developed an international reputation for attracting top industry executives and thought leaders from around the world.

“The SAC offers anyone in the automotive industry the opportunity to network with the South’s OEMs, tier suppliers and service providers,” says Sheila Wardy, director of Integrated Media and Events at PMT Publishing Inc., which is working with GAMA to plan and market the conference. “It’s the watering hole where everyone comes to drink during that brief time. Marketing your company at the SAC is the best value there is, because we’re gathering everyone you want to see in one place.”

To promote connections, organizers built in more exhibit hall breaks to

provide more time for one-on-one contact with exhibitors and sponsors.

Carpet is being added to aisles and an improved layout will increase traffic flow to exhibit booths. The addition of carpet might seem like a small thing, but it’s important, Walker says.

“Exhibitors asked for it,” he notes.

“They step out into the aisles to mingle with people passing by. Carpet provides comfort and noise reduction and ensures that communication is kept top priority. The exhibitors and our sponsors are our lifeblood. We really want this to work for them.”

Again this year, sponsors, exhibitors, OEM purchasing agents and VIP guests are invited to an exclusive reception that offers a sneak peek — the night before the conference starts — at exhibitors, layout and new features. The event will offer horsd’oeuvres, music, C-suite networking and OEM speed networking.

Innovation Zone The Innovation Zone, which is sponsored by Siemens Industry Inc., will be in the four main exhibit halls.

The zone will provide a look at some of the most exciting innovations in the automotive industry, including robotics, augmented reality, 3D printing and GPS tracking.

Attendees can participate in hands-on activities, and watch live demonstrations and moving displays in

The conference is an 11-year tradition now, and the four of us in the Southern Automotive Manufacturers Alliance feel it’s an obligation to improve every year. Continuously improving is in our DNA. We are passionate about putting together something special.

We want people to say, ‘If I didn’t come here, I never would have seen this.’– Rick Walker, president, CEO and founder of the Georgia Automotive Manufacturers Association

Speakers and Panelists Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal will deliver a keynote address the last day of the conference. Other speakers and panelists include: • Raj Batra, president, digital factory division, Siemens (The Digital Factory).

• Stuart Countess, chief administrative officer, KIA/KMG (OEM Panel).

• Linda Hasenfratz, CEO, Linamar (Tier 1 Perspective).

• Ryan Miller, programs manager and associate director of external operations, Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence (Workforce Development).

• Dr. Hagen Radowski, president and CEO, MHP Americas – a Porsche Company (Topic to be announced).

• Gary Silberg, national sector lead partner for the automotive industry/global lead partner for Delphi Corp. and Ford Motor Co., KPMG (State of the Industry).

• Jonathan Smoke, chief economist, Cox Automotive (The Outlook for a Shifting US Auto Market).

• Mike Stonecipher, senior project manager, Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (Innovation Test Track).

• John Waraniak, vice president, vehicle technology, SEMA (The Race to Autonomy).

Conference-goers will also have access to the Innovation Zone and Innovation Test Track – both featured last year, and the new Workforce Development Zone.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 25

SAC

C ONFE RE NC E

We make more cars in the South than in any other part of the country. With that backdrop, we are going to showcase what we have going on in our industry. We are innovating a lot. – Rick Walker the Innovation Zone Spotlight Theatre.

To reserve an exhibitors spot in this exciting area, go to www.

SouthernAutoCon.com, click on the “Exhibitors” tab and “Innovation Zone.”

Innovation Test Track The Innovation Test Track pitch competition will feature four companies with a new technology, innovative product or service that is valuable to the automotive industry. The competition will be Oct. 5 (Entries were due July 31, and selected companies will be notified the week of Sept 2).

The first-place prize is $2,500, a twopage center advertisement in Southern Automotive Alliance magazine, and follow-up pitch opportunities with each judge.

The runner-up will receive a full-page advertisement in Southern Automotive Alliance magazine and a pitch opportunity with one judge.

Workforce Development Zone The new Workforce Development Zone (WDZ), which is sponsored by Data Interchange, will be in the main exhibit hall. Organizers say the zone will address one of the automotive manufacturing industry’s most pressing issues and offers the chance to connect one-on-one with strategists.

“Workforce development has been top-of-mind for all of the OEMs and major Tier 1s, and we are responsive to that,” Walker says. “Exhibitors from participating states, who specialize in workforce development, will share their best practices and partner with attendees to strategize for the future.

“This is not a Georgia show, this is the Southern Automotive Conference.

26 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

If someone comes from Germany or France and they are looking for solutions to workforce development, or looking to build a new factory, I want them to know we can provide a solution.”

As of press time, exhibitor space was available in the WDZ, but limited. To secure a spot, go to www.

SouthernAutoCon.com and click on the “Exhibitors” tab and “Workforce Development Zone.”

The Stars of Southern Manufacturing Awards In another nod to the importance of excellent employees at every level of an automotive company - from the managerial level to the factory floor the conference will, on Oct. 4, feature The Stars of Southern Manufacturing Awards Luncheon. Awards will be presented to several employees who possess skills and personalities that keep automotive companies running.

The schedule that day also includes a networking breakfast, breakout sessions,

keynote speakers, exhibit hall breaks, an OEM panel and the Coca-Cola Roxy Gala. The gala will be held from 5-8 p.m. at The Battery Atlanta, one of the city’s newest entertainment nightlife hot spots, which is anchored by SunTrust Park, the new home of the Atlanta Braves. All conference attendees are invited.

Walker says his goal for SAC 2018

is to connect people to the best of everything going on in automotive.

“We hope people leave here energized with new strategies and ideas,” he says.

For more information about the conference, to register, or to be an exhibitor, please go to www. southernautocon.com. Early-bird registration and discounts end Sept. 1. n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 27

INDUSTRY OUTLOOK

DRIVING THE TRADE WAR

Looming U.S. tariffs cause worry for automakers and signal potentially dramatic changes in prices, model availability and employment opportunities TEXT BY: BILL GERDES

F

or consumers in the market for a new vehicle, it might be time to pull the trigger.

Kristin Dziczek, vice president at the Center for Automobile Research, a nonprofit research organization in Ann Arbor, Michigan, says she has had “a couple of cocktail party conversations with people who then went out and bought new cars.”

The reason behind the decision is that Dziczek and other industry observers expect vehicle prices to jump if the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs are enacted.

What kind of tariff policy the administration will come up with is unclear, but the administration has mentioned tariffs of up to 20 percent

on imports. It may be coincidence, but U.S. automakers reported stronger June sales, as consumers continued to buy sport utility vehicles and trucks in larger numbers.

Right now, Dziczek says, the Commerce Department is conducting an investigation, which will be followed by a comment period.

“We are expecting it will be pretty quick, August or September. We will see a report and then the president can take that report and follow their recommendations, do whatever the heck he wants,” Dziczek says. “I am expecting this will follow much of the same procedure that we saw with steel and aluminum and that is that all countries will be under the tariff until they

28 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

negotiate individual exemptions.

“With steel and aluminum there were only a handful of exemptions granted; one was to Korea, one to Australia, one to Brazil, but Canada and Mexico did not get exemptions.”

More than half of the cars imported to the U.S. come from Canada and Mexico, Dziczek says, and more than half the country’s imported vehicle parts come from Canada and Mexico.

In addition, she says, “71 percent of our parts exports go to Canada and Mexico.

That is a really important trading bloc that is going to be shook off its foundation if they are included in the tariffs on cars or parts.”

Edmunds.com estimates that 47 percent of new cars sold in the U.S. are

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 29

I N D U S T R Y

O U TLO O K

We will have to reduce production, will have lower volumes, probably have some layoffs, and the thing is, the case that they made for steel and aluminum was that an industry is healthy if it is at 80 percent utilization and the U.S. auto and parts industry is over 80 percent utilization. —Kristin Dziczek, vice president at the Center for Automobile Research

made elsewhere, as well as some share of parts on the remaining 53 percent because of global supply chains.

“Given the sizable import presence in the auto industry, Trump’s proposed tariffs would dramatically increase new-car prices. For example, for imported vehicles, a 20 percent tariff could increase the average transaction price of a typically equipped new car by approximately $7,000, from $35,000 to $42,000, if automakers passed on the entire cost of the tariff to consumers,” Edmunds.com notes. “What’s more, price increases would likely not be limited to imported cars or cars with higher levels of imported content. As prices increased on these vehicles, demand would grow for vehicles less impacted by the tariffs. Given the extent of imported vehicles and parts, it is unlikely that manufacturers could readily adjust domestic production to meet the higher demand or that the additional vehicles could be

produced as cheaply as their imported counterparts. In particular, labor tends to be more expensive in the U.S. As a result, prices on the less impacted vehicles would likely rise as well.”

The Southern tier of automotive manufacturers could be deeply impacted by the tariffs and auto manufacturers with facilities in the South have voiced their opposition to the proposed tariffs, according to businessinsider.com.

Honda, in its statement to the Commerce Department, says tariffs on auto imports would harm the U.S. economy and lead to layoffs.

The tariffs, Honda reports, “would increase prices for consumers, both of imported and domestically built cars, which would likely lead to decreased sales and could ultimately negatively impact auto industry jobs, from production to suppliers to dealers.”

BMW says the move could lead to layoffs at its plant in South Carolina and other U.S. facilities.

“All of these factors would substantially increase the costs of exporting passenger cars to these markets from the United States and deteriorate the market access for BMW in these jurisdictions, potentially leading to strongly reduced export volumes and negative effects on investment and employment in the United States,” BMW’s statement says. “Given the very high export share of our U.S. production, this negative impact could also overcompensate any positive effect of forced deeper localization of products supplying the U.S. domestic market.”

General Motors, a U.S.-based company, says the tariffs would increase costs and hurt business and recommends “prioritizing work with our adjacent trading partners to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and advance implementation of modernized NAFTA and KORUS agreements. The overbroad and steep application of import tariffs on our trading partners risks isolating U.S. businesses like GM from the global market that helps to preserve and grow our strength here at home.”

Hyundai, a South Korean company,

30 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

cites the recent updates to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement as a key reason the tariffs are unnecessary and pointed out that half of its cars sold in the U.S. are manufactured in the U.S. Toyota warns that the cost of its cars would rise significantly due to the tariffs, which could harm consumers and its business. “Free and fair trade is the best way to create sustained growth for the auto industry, employment opportunities for American workers and provide more choice and greater value for American consumers,” Toyota reports. “Erecting trade barriers, like import tariffs, will ultimately invite retaliation from other nations and undermine America’s leadership, exports and competitiveness overseas.”

According to the American Automotive Policy Council (which represents Ford, Chrysler, and GM) auto tariffs “will undermine the enormous economic contributions the U.S. auto sector makes to our economy... consumers would face a combined $90 billion in additional costs if a 25 percent tariff is imposed.” The council reports tariffs “will increase costs for consumers, lessen consumer choice, lower consumer demand, reduce car and light truck production and sales, lower investment levels, and lead to job losses in the US auto sector.”

“You know, the president talks a lot about imported Mercedes and BMWs,” Dziczek says, “those luxury vehicles that he says are being sent here by the millions, but they are not. We make a lot of BMWs and Mercedes in the United States. Those are two of our top exporting companies. They are one and two for exports to China. I think Mercedes is number one, BMW number two 2, Ford is number three and Tesla is number 4 if you are looking at exports to China.”

But, as Dziczek points out, “The case with China is a different case. That is a section 301 case about intellectual property and China just announced a retaliation. It set tariffs on imported U.S. vehicles – they went down to 15 percent, then they added 25 on top of that so now

they are 40 percent and the auto makers who export there said we are not going to raise our prices.”

“It is only a handful of vehicles – they are making more in China than they are exporting from the United States.”

The problem is, according to Dziczek, “On a mass market vehicle, you cannot pass that tariff along.Their volumes are too huge to eat the tariff. Take for example the Toyota RAV 4, which they will soon be making in Mississippi. Now they make it in Canada. It is in a very competitive segment against vehicles made in the U.S. so a tariff on that coming from Canada, and running it against a Ford Escape now made in the U.S. you are not going to sell very many RAV-4s here until you can start building them here.

“One of the big problems with this procedure is that this is a signature procedure, so the Commerce Department makes its investigation, makes its recommendations, the president signs an executive order and tariffs are in place. To avoid the tariff, and to comply with this, would cost billions and billions of dollars per auto maker and supplier.”

According to Dziczek, the average U.S. content in a vehicle made in the U.S. is right around 60 percent. “On imported parts you are looking at 30 to 40 percent of it costing 25 percent more, so even a car made here costs more. We looked at what if cars made were all at 90 percent content -- which none are -- you’re still putting on a 10 percent tariff and that would erode a quarter to a half of the profit margin on that vehicle.”

One way auto makers are looking at to cope with the tariffs is reducing the numbers of models. In 2017, there were 237 existing models and 38 new car models offered in the U.S. market, compared with 2000 when there were 170 existing models with 41 new models.

“Well, they will reduce the ones that they are importing,” Dziczek says, “and then they will be able to take the productive capacity here and turn it to a smaller number of vehicles.

“It is a risk-mitigating strategy to

say we are going to offer fewer models, to have less specialized production,” Dziczek says. She says auto makers will have to be more flexible to be able to produce more of what the market will demand. “We only have about 60 days of inventory on the lots right now. So all imports are going to go to a trickle, certain imports make consumers less price sensitive, certain importers sell so few here they may be able to do it and mainly eat the tariff but you will see some just disappear.”

Last year there were 17.3 million vehicles sold in the United States, 11 million of which were made in the U.S, which exported a little more than two million. According to Dziczek, “So of that 17 million, only about nine million were made here and sold here. And then half of those imports that were sold here came from Canada and Mexico. If we had all U.S. plants running all out, two shifts, straight time, at what is considered full capacity, you could make 14 million units of cars and trucks. So we only made 11. Why did we not make 14? Because there is 3 million units in seemingly idle capacity so it is either plants down to be retooled or it is plants that are making models that are not in high demand and many of the plants that are not running

The best case, I think, for next year if these tariffs are in place, is maybe we can make 12 or 13 million units of cars here. But nobody is making any decisions on this because they are all waiting to see what happens.

—Kristin Dziczek

full capacity are sedan plants. Americans hate sedans all of a sudden.

“The best case, I think, for next year if these tariffs are in place, is maybe we can make 12 or 13 million units of cars here,” she says. “But nobody is making any decisions on this because they are all waiting to see what happens.”

Dziczek says that the U.S. will have to “reduce production, will have lower volumes, probably have some layoffs, and the thing is, the case that they made for steel and aluminum was that an industry is healthy if it is at 80 percent utilization and the U.S. auto and parts industry is over 80 percent utilization.

So I don’t know what case they make to say this is not a healthy industry.”

The used car market also looks grim.

“You can’t make more used cars,” Dziczek says. “There is a set number of cars so the used car market will increase.

If you want to hang on to your car longer, you have to buy consumables - air filters, oil filters, PCV valves and all that - and many of those are imported. Just the cost of maintaining and repairing your car will go up.”

And those customer-attracting incentives for new car buyers? “They will probably be reduced or phased out,” according to Dziczek.

Also at risk if the tariffs are enacted is the U.S. auto parts industry, which employs some 880,000 people. In comments submitted June 29 to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) strongly opposed broad, unilateral, and import-restrictive measures on imported automobiles or motor vehicle parts being explored by the department as directed by the Trump administration. MEMA strongly urged the Department of Commerce to remove motor vehicle parts from the scope of its investigation and not to recommend any adjustments to imported parts.

If the tariffs are enacted as currently planned, and if Canada and Mexico are included, Dziczek says, “I think the slowdown in American production happens very quickly, probably within a couple of months.” n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 31

BUILT BY DESIGN

GREENPOWERUSA ELECTRIC CAR CHALLENGE

By designing, building and racing their own vehicles, students get on the fast track to STEM careers TEXT BY: LORI CHANDLER PRUITT / PHOTOS COURTESY: DREW SPARKS

F

ew things can hold a kid’s attention more than getting to drive a race car. But kids who participate in GreenpowerUSA’s Electric Car Challenge get to do just that and much more. And it’s not just about the excitement of motorsport – it’s the STEM principles they learn.

“It was so satisfying to build a car and run it,” says Chase Abbott, a rising ninth grader in the Academy of Science and Foreign Language in Huntsville City Schools. “We learned how to work as a team and it gave us confidence, too.” The team did pretty well with their gold and black electric car, under the tutelage of their 8th grade physical science teacher.

Aurora Esquivel, Chase’s mother, says the experience has spurred her son into pursuing several STEM opportunities, such as a Toyota program available at Calhoun Community College for eligible high school students. “GreenpowerUSA is such a great opportunity for him, and it has given him an idea of what he wants to do,” she says. “It really instilled confidence in his and his team’s ability to do this kind of thing. And the automotive industry is huge here.”

It definitely is. Not only is Huntsville home to Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama, where last year workers turned out about 700,000 engines, but Toyota and Mazda Motor

32 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Corp. also announced their pairing for a $1.6 billion joint assembly plant in Huntsville that will hire up to 4,000 workers. Polaris, in Huntsvilleannexed Limestone County, builds off-road vehicles, and continues to add production lines and more workers.

And that listing does not include the numerous automotive suppliers.

“Through the GreenpowerUSA Initiative, students are starting to become more interested in automotive manufacturing as well as automotive design,” says Drew Sparks, GreenpowerUSA vice president of academic affairs and GreenpowerUSA lead teacher for Huntsville City Schools. “Several of our students have

Several of our students have gone on to school to be mechanics, automotive engineers, and several other fields. In some cases, students have been a part of various collegiate automotive programs at the post-secondary level.

—Drew Sparks, GreenpowerUSA

vice president of academic affairs and GreenpowerUSA lead teacher for Huntsville City Schools

gone on to school to be mechanics, automotive engineers, and several other fields. In some cases, students have been a part of various collegiate automotive programs at the postsecondary level.”

Students in Huntsville City Schools are among dozens of teams around the country who design, build and race their own electric cars through GreenpowerUSA, a 501(c) 3, STEMbased charity program that started in the United Kingdom as Greenpower Education Trust 20 years ago. About five years ago, Huntsville City Schools asked to begin the program here as well. It has grown by leaps and bounds, and there are teams all across the country – 350 teams in 21 states now, Sparks says. Alabama has the majority of teams.

“It has just exploded in a good way,” Sparks says. “We’re STEM based, and it gets kids involved at a young age.”

As GreenpowerUSA lead teacher, he trains teachers in the summer for the program. “I’m like the athletic director for the program,” he says. “I also help with the curriculum.” Huntsville City Schools has dozens of teams.

The kit cars are made so that they can be taken down and put back together for each school year, and cars range, according to the competition category, from $2,000 to $5,000, Sparks says. Schools can purchase cars outright, or write grants, find sponsors, ask state and federal representatives and the community to help finance a AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 33

B U I LT

BY

D E S IGN

We tell students you are the owner of your future, and we’ll tailor it to you.

—Drew Sparks car. The car will last a long time as long as the classes take care of it.

Each teacher who trains receives the Siemens Solid Edge 3D design program free, Sparks says. Siemens is a GreenpowerUSA title sponsor and technology partner that supports the GreenpowerUSA Electric Car Challenge across the U.S. and the UK. Younger students, fourth to sixth grade, learn basic engineering, use of tools and blueprints, electrical components and more, Sparks says.

Fifth graders can drive the race car, and their race category is Formula Goblin.

Older students, seventh to twelfth grades, compete in three levels of the Formula F-24 category and not only learn all of the above, advanced manufacturing and fabrication and get to race the car, but as part of the marketing part of the program, students present what they learn.

From goals to budget, business plan and more, students are subject to being interviewed on the spot on the presentation, Sparks says. Students also had to produce and edit a video to be sent out to sponsors via YouTube. The overall winner is determined by both the race and the presentation. “It’s like a football field for engineers,” Sparks says. There are three races per school year in middle and high school, and two for elementary students.

To ensure safety at all levels, the Sports Car Club of America, another sponsor, provides services and expertise in many ways, which includes club members staffing the corners of most races and running the scoring and timing. “They take completely over, using radios just like a pit crew,” he says. “It’s really exciting for everyone.”

GreenpowerUSA has other sponsors who work with its foundation in several capacities. Other sponsors include PPG Industries (which makes, among other things anti-ballistic glass for vehicles), and TCU Consulting, which helped integrate Greenpower racetracks in several schools in Huntsville.

34 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Some teams across the country have raced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and local teams will compete again at Barber Motorsports Park.

Whether students eventually enter the automotive industry or not, the program exposes them to many STEM possibilities, Sparks says. “We have a lot of kids who intend to explore STEM careers. This program attracts students to aerodynamics, software, coding, 3D and more.” One student who has gone through the program is planning to study biomedical engineering and learn to make 3D prosthetics for wounded veterans, he says. Others decide to go into technical fields such as welding and machining. Either way, it opens up new possibilities.

“We tell students you are the owner of your future, and we’ll tailor it to you,” he says. “Many students have found their place in this program. The president of GreenpowerUSA says if we can just get kids excited for 1½ hours at school, they’ll be excited for the remainder of the day. If we do that, we’ve done our job.” n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 35

INNOVATION

Course Correction

Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz International.

Automotive suppliers face increased pressure to innovate as OEM customers strive to build the high-tech vehicles of the future.

BY GAIL ALLYN SHORT

F

rom electric and hybrid powertrains to sensors, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence, these are just a few of the technologies that are disrupting automotive manufacturing today.

Advanced technologies such as driverless vehicles are the future, automakers say. In fact, a AAA survey released earlier this spring reported that close to 20 percent of Americans are likely to choose electric for their next vehicle purchase. On the other hand, the J.D. Power 2017 U.S. Tech Choice Study SM found that compared to poll results in 2016, 11 percent more Generation Z consumers — those born between 1995 and 2004 — said they were wary of automated technology.

That said, traditional carmakers like GM, Ford, Daimler and Volkswagen have announced their intention to develop autonomous vehicles.

But as more carmakers in the South and around the world embrace EVs, connectivity and other advanced technologies, many of their suppliers are rethinking their operations and expanding their businesses to produce and even innovate the advanced components their OEM customers want, Ron Davis, president of the Alabama Automotive Manufacturers Association (AAMA) says.

“More suppliers will have to evaluate their business models and products and ask how they fit into future vehicles,” Davis says. “All suppliers will be

Over the last few years we’ve seen an expansion of R&D and creative mobility solutions spring up all over in the Southeast. Not only are we a globally known region for ‘state of the art’ manufacturing, but we’re fast becoming a region to grow our own new technology to improve and support mobility.

— Jean Marie Thrower, CEO of Supplier Development Systems

36 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

reflecting on what they build today and what they need to build for the future and if their product will continue to be used in those future vehicles.”

Jean Marie Thrower, CEO of Supplier Development Systems, a Birminghambased firm that provides technical sales, engineering and liaison support for automotive suppliers, says she is also seeing more suppliers taking a hard look at their business models to see how they can innovate auto parts and assist OEMs that plan to produce vehicles that are more technologically advanced.

“If they don’t have an innovation,” says Thrower, “and they’re a commodity supplier only, they’re going to continue to see more competition, and it’s literally coming down to just the price. That’s a dangerous place for any supplier to be in.

“They need to stay on the front side, and bring in key innovation that makes sense for the applicable commodity they’re already supplying.”

Investing For The Future Here in the South, some local and international suppliers are investing in existing plants to foster innovation. The Japanese auto supplier Denso Corp., for example, announced its intent to invest $1 billion in its Maryville, Tennessee, plant and add more than 1,000 jobs to help meet the demand for components

for hybrid and electric vehicles.

Additionally in a 2017 press statement by Mercedes-Benz U.S. International (MBUSI), highlighting its annual supplier forum, the company said it introduced its suppliers to CASE, the automaker’s new strategic plan for its vehicles that stands for Connectivity, Autonomous, Shared & Service and Electric Drive.

“Each of these trends has the potential to revolutionize the automobile industry,” the MBUSI statement says. “Mercedes-Benz Purchasing and Supplier Quality works on incorporating new innovations, software and services such as map data into its products four to five years ahead of customers being able to experience them in a vehicle. Mercedes-Benz also needs its U.S. suppliers to focus on innovation as well.”

Mercedes-Benz had already publicized that it would invest $1 billion at its Vance, Alabama, plant to launch its electric vehicle production.

“We hear from companies all of the time saying that essentially everything needs more engineering, because everything, not just connected and autonomous vehicle systems, but nearly every part of the vehicle has gotten more sophisticated in terms of the technology,” says Bernard Swiecki, director of Automotive Communities Partnerships at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

If suppliers are not sufficiently innovative, says Swiecki, then their usefulness to the industry will be confined to commoditized products, that is, anything made cheaply and at a high volume with a low profit margin.

“If you want to be the company of choice and looked at first for high, value-added products that are more likely to have a decent profit margin associated with them,” says Swiecki, “then, odds are, you need innovate; you need to show that capability because the automakers themselves are becoming very reliant on suppliers for a lot of these new technologies.”

High-Tech Collaborations The need for suppliers who can play the role of innovator could benefit the South’s auto industry. Thrower says there are already efforts underway to bring Silicon Valley venture capital and incubators for mobility innovation startups to the Southeast to collaborate with suppliers in the auto industry.

“Over the last few years we’ve seen an expansion of R&D and creative mobility solutions spring up all over in the Southeast, she says. “Not only are we a globally known region for ‘state of the art’ manufacturing, but we’re fast becoming a region to grow our own new technology to improve and support mobility.”

She points to Palo Alto, California, tech firm Eyeris, which has developed a facial recognition system that the company aims to use to recognize vehicle passengers’ emotions or if they are about to fall asleep. Another firm, Reality Analytics headquartered in San Jose, uses vibration technology to help detect problems in a vehicle before a breakdown occurs.

“Both of these companies have projects with customers in the Southeast and this type of activity is a catalyst to increase mobility innovation from Southern suppliers,” Thower says.

Swiecki says advances in technology are also impacting the way OEMs and suppliers work together. “Because these technologies are integral to the vehicle,” says Swiecki, “you need a

much earlier involvement of that given supplier and a much more advanced incorporation of that supplier’s technology into the vehicle. And that requires a very close working relationship with the automaker early on in the vehicle design phase.”

One example of that kind of relationship is REHAU, which opened its research center in Cullman, Alabama, in 2015.

“Our new technical center allows research and development functions as well as new design initiatives to take place right beside production while keeping jobs related to our North American automotive business in the Cullman region,” REHAU President Holm Riepenhausen said.

“This streamlines workflow and productivity while offering an increased level of efficiency and service to automotive manufacturers in the Southeastern [United States,]” Riepenhausen said.

Thrower says that because the Southeast continues to grow its brand in the global automotive world, more innovative companies from around the world are reaching out to companies in the South to help them market, codevelop or develop their products.

“And that’s because we’ve created an innovative, economical and comprehensive synergy in the supply chains across our region,” says Thrower.

“The OEMs have been a huge factor in helping to create that.” n

REHAU is an example of a supplier bringing innovative research to the Southeast.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 37

INNOVATION

Payton’s Charm Brings Aerospace Ingenuity to Autos

Patent pending prototype has the X-factor to prevent deaths from hyperthermia in automobiles

BY CARA D. CLARK

T

hat’s impossible. How could it happen?

That’s what people wonder when confronted with stories of children being left in vehicles, then suffering heat stroke and death. Since 1998, 765 children have died due to heat stroke, with 43 last year and 22 this year as of this writing.

Perhaps most tragically, each of those deaths was preventable.

Finding a way to prevent such occurrences became the mission of Mike Alvarez, founder of Venturi, a Huntsville-based aerospace company.

“I would see press about children inadvertently left behind in cars and ending in tragedy,” Alvarez says. “It breaks your heart to see it. …If you think about how distracted we are by technology—the cell phone is ringing, the boss is calling, the child falls asleep, rear-facing car seats—you can see how it can happen.”

Alvarez to steps to learn more,

then he went further by offering his employees an incentive to help find a solution.

“It started keeping me up at night.

I thought of all the smart people we have in this company and came up with the idea of an X Prize. I wanted to find something that was not just a one-trick pony if a child was left in the car seat, but something that would detect if a child was playing hide-n-seek and got left in the car or if an adult or someone with special needs was left in a car.”

Knowing that death from hyperthermia can result in 15 minutes, Alvarez wanted a device that would alert the driver quickly enough to make a difference. He offered a monetary reward to the Venturi X Prize winner.

He selected two teams whose designs met the feasibility criteria.

The winner was a patent-pending prototype designed by Venturi employee Ben Payment, who has named his device Payton’s Charm

38 | Southern Automotive Alliance / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

in memory of a child who died in Florida in 2010. Payton’s father, Reggie McKinnon, has become a fierce advocate for raising awareness of this problem.

Payment found Payton’s story on Safekids.org and couldn’t get the situation out of his mind. McKinnon, who found his lifeless daughter after working in his office all day, had been one of those people who always thought, “How could I forget my child? I would never do that. That only happens to people who are uneducated, drunk, drug addicts — not me.”

Inspired by McKinnon’s experience, Payment approached the challenge focused on saving lives.

“The touching video explains the misconception of this problem,” Payment says. “The biggest challenge is for people to realize that could happen to them just the way it happened to Payton’s father.” He thinks of his electronic solution like a charm bracelet that could have saved Payton, and now might save others: Payton’s Charm.

Payment, an electrical engineer, created a small device, which not only detects the presence of life in a vehicle, but also has the capability to notify the owner or driver, to escalate the notification to 911 if needed and to identify the car’s location with GPS. Payton’s Charm can be monitored from a smart phone and sends real-time data to the user.

Payment has been working with the University of Alabama at Huntsville to test and refine the prototype, and has enlisted a co-worker, relatives and even his schnauzer to test the device—in controlled conditions.

Payton’s Charm is designed to sense when life is endangered by the environmental conditions in the car.

If the car is stationary and the interior reaches unsafe condition with life inside, the device reacts.

If the owner doesn’t respond to the warning, first responders will be directed to the vehicle to save the occupant’s life.

Payment’s device does not depend on weight or even the presence of a car seat. “If you confine the product to car seats, you’re only solving 25 percent of the problem,” Payment says.

“I knew we had to detect life another way. It couldn’t be a rear seat sensor or hatch sensor. It had to sense the entire vehicle. And it had be low-cost retrofittable.”

His invention contains an internal rechargeable battery designed to operate for approximately one month, monitoring environmental conditions in a car.

“If this device is never plugged in, it will still last a month,” Payment says. “I looked at all the design trade-offs from ultra-low power to recognizing a fivepound dog or 200-pound adult.”

Payment came up with a prototype that has a clear path to market and ties into the ubiquitous cellular network and world wide web, allowing the device to perform in populated areas with ease.

“The problem is not people going to the Sipsey Wilderness and forgetting their kids are in the car,” he says. “This is happening at the supermarket or at their work.”

Testing with a third-party independent organization shows the product is ready to save lives today.

“They were incredulous going in, but now they see it looks like a viable thing that is very simple conceptually,” Payment says. “It’s a complex design,

Ben Payment and Jack Sisk

You can see if you’re not the one who drives a child every day or if something is out of your routine, this can happen.

We all have distractions in our life. — Developer, Ben Payment but a very simple solution.”

Payment has spent more than three years and nearly 700 hours designing and perfecting the device, working mostly on his own time to create a solution that can be added to existing vehicles or integrated into new vehicles.

Developers are confident this card deck-sized device is ready for market.

Now aerospace-centric Venturi is determining how best to work with the automotive industry to deploy the device and begin saving lives.

Jack Sisk of Technology Acceleration and Innovation Services has been working with the team. He calls Payton’s Charm “a real game changer.”

“Payton’s Charm can save lives. We already know more than 700 children have died, and all of the near misses are not captured anywhere. This is a concrete solution for preventing fatalities,” Sisk says.

Alvarez says the company is “looking for a partner on the automotive side who can take our technology and get it into vehicles to save lives. We’re currently engaging with Tier 1s and OEMs seeking alternatives to take this to market. It’s a brilliant, simplistic approach that Ben has come up with, and it will work anywhere in the country.”

One goal is a price point that will be affordable, even for new families just starting out, developers say. With saving

lives the priority—more than the profit margin— the Alabama Automotive Manufacturers Association has embraced the project and tried to lend assistance, including working with Sisk and AAMA head Ron Davis, to get the device to market as soon as possible.

Payment reached out to McKinnon, who agreed to the use of Payton’s name as a memorial to his late daughter and a call to action. And from the inception of the contest, preventing another senseless death has been on this young engineer’s mind.

“As an engineer, I don’t work a 9-to-5 schedule,” Payment says. “Sometimes I lie awake at night and have this problem that keeps my mind spinning.

I’ve even gotten in my car to go to work on a weekend and realized I’m not going to work today. Our minds are elsewhere.

I might be solving code problems that kept me up all night, and I’m distracted.

“You can see if you’re not the one who drives a child every day or if something is out of your routine, this can happen.”

Alvarez says it’s time for the auto industry to take action, and Payment’s prototype has been validated with humans and pets in a safe, controlled environment.

“It scares me having grandkids,” he says. “This can happen to anybody, but it’s preventable. It’s a tragedy that doesn’t have to happen.” n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 39

THE BEAUTY OF SPEED TEXT BY: NICK PATTERSON / PHOTOS: JOE D e SCIOSE / BARBER MOTORSPORTS

The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum and Barber Motorsports park have attracted nearly 4 million visitors since 2003, with 351,000 visiting the attraction in 2017 alone.

I

f you look around the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, you might not be surprised to find familiar automotive names and badges: Chevy. BMW. Maserati. Maybach. Daimler. Ducati.

But you might be surprised that all those labels are attached to motorcycles alongside Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Triumph and a whole slew of other brands, many well regarded, some legendary, and sometimes consigned mostly to history: BSA, Benelli, Brough Superior, Norton, Horex, Indian, Parilla, Moto-

40 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Guzzi, KTM, Moro Morini, F.B. Mondial, MZ, CZ, Vincent, Aer Macchi.

With so much chrome, so much leather and so much rubber to burn, Barber is like heaven for motorcycle enthusiasts. It boasts of being the world’s largest motorcycle museum.

In its five levels, the museum boasts more than 1500 bikes (not all on display), ranging from a replica of the wooden, steam-powered velocipede which may have been the first motorcycle, (and another wooden one Daimler and Maybach built which may also lay claim on being the first) to sleek

George Barber’s love of fast cars and powerful motorcycles still propels his one-of-a-kind museum in Birmingham, Alabama

One of the main reasons I did it was to get people to Birmingham that normally would never come, and it’s done just that.

As a matter of fact, since the first of the year, we’ve had people from 61 different countries come here.

Steve McQueen.

There is also much to love for car fans; the museum boasts an incredible collection of Lotus race cars through the decades—the biggest in the world, according to founder and former professional Porsche racer George Barber—as well as a Model T Ford, and examples of MG and Ferrari sports cars.

But as mindblowing as the motorcycle museum is, it is just the centerpiece of what Barber has brought to life on 880 acres on the extreme eastern edge of the city.

“They call our racetrack the Augusta of Racetracks, after the golf course. We have 18,000 crepe myrtles, and 16,000 azaleas, and we have over

powerful machines built for modern speeds approaching 200 miles per hour.

Military bikes. Cop bikes. Racing bikes.

Choppers. Trail bikes. Scooters. Three-wheelers.

Cushmans.

The Pierce 4 from 1910. The 1938 Brough Superior like the one T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) rode. A replica of the “Captain America” chopper from the movie Easy Rider. Bikes connected to Michael Jordan and Jeff Gordon, not to mention AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 41

S P OTLI GH T

850,000 bulbs in the ground,” Barber says. “And it really is luscious. It really is a beautiful, beautiful park that happens to have a racetrack in it. We give garden tours and we take garden groups around to show them, and these are generally people that don’t give a damn about racetracks and are a little worried about being on a racetrack from all the things they’ve heard about the dirt and the oil and the dot, dot, dot; and we get them out there and show them what we’ve got, and they’re just dazzled.”

Barber is proud of what he and his team have accomplished at the park, which is evident when he gives a high-spirited tour around the track, the proving grounds and other more hidden areas of the site. He knows the funny story behind every whimsical piece of art—and there is a lot of it there, on grassy knolls, peeking out of the water—as well as the details of the carefully selected landscape plants all around the track, and the different grades of pavement, some for racing, some for testing by professionals from Mercedes and Porsche, both of which use the Barber facilities for training and teaching.

The Barber track regularly attracts hundreds of thousands of people to watch world-class drivers in Indy races and other events. He’s taken pains to make Barber Motorsports Park a firstrate facility, because, he says, that’s the kind of quality it takes to get people to come to Birmingham.

“One of the main reasons I did it was to get people to Birmingham that normally would never come, and it’s done just that. As a matter of fact, since the first of the year, we’ve had people from 61 different countries come here to Birmingham,” he says.

“Now, when we get these people here and they can see our environment Barber’s in-demand track – which some call the Augusta of racetracks – was used 275 days in 2017. The track hosts events by Porsche and BMW clubs, and is used by IndyCar and MotoAmerica among others.

42 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

“I wasn’t a racer, so I was able to look at racing with fresh eyes and a lot of inquisitiveness. I was a complete blank slate with no preconceived ideas. And I like to do things that are new and different, and I got infected and picked up the virus of Le Mans.”

A massive collection of motorcycles share museum space with the most extensive collection of Lotus racers in the world.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 43

S P OT L I G H T Spectator areas are designed to make sure visitors get a good view of the action all around the course.

and what we do here, and how lovely a place it is, hopefully one may decide to open a business here. One may come and want to build a building here; you never know. But overall, I think we’ve generated over one billion and four or five hundred million dollars in benefits in taxes and stuff for the state, so that’s done a good thing.” Actually, according to a recent Barber brochure that economic impact number keeps climbing – now it is nearly $1.8 billion.

Why does he care so much about the city? “The city has been good to me and my family, and I’ve enjoyed being here, and it’s a lovely place to live and be,” Barber says.

Racing Business The Barber family was known for the dairy business; Barber’s name still remains on milk, ice cream and other products, even though George Barber sold the business more than 20 years ago. But long before that, when his father was still running it, Barber worked there and raced whenever he got a chance.

“I guess I started about 1960 and went to some wonderful driving schools in Europe,” Barber recalls. He raced Porsches and won several races – he has 63 first place trophies. He mostly raced in the American Southeast, for

Driver Ian James, Don Panoz and Team Panoz Racing manager Tom Milner.

one very simple reason: “I had to be at work Monday morning at 7 o’clock. Every Monday morning, and so …I couldn’t make California trips and I couldn’t make any place that I couldn’t get back to work at 7 o’clock Monday,” he says, “Or I would’ve gotten … fired.”

So after several years of racing cars, Barber says, “I quit … my dad died at 70 in the middle of ’70 and I had to start racing the milk business, which was a little bit more dangerous than racing cars.”

44 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

He sold the dairy business after almost 30 years, then went into real estate. But he never got racing out of his blood. At one point, he considered opening a car museum, but several things happened. One of them was when his friend Dave Hooper gave Barber a couple of motorcycles – one of them described on the Barber website as a “rare, exquisitely detailed 1952 Victoria Bergmeister” and Barber was hooked.

“You can see the engineering of a bike, where a car is a beautiful paint job and a set of hubcaps; but the bikes,

Former racer George Barber’s love of speed and his hometown led him to create the nonprofit project on 880 acres in eastern Birmingham.

You can see the engineering of a bike, where a car is a beautiful paint job and a set of hubcaps; but the bikes, you see the cylinder heads, you see the brakes, you see the exhaust systems, you see the rear suspension

you see the cylinder heads, you see the brakes, you see the exhaust systems, you see the rear suspension. And it was really interesting to me to do that because I had raced cars for about twelve years and did all my own work on those cars, and so I really loved the

engineering as much as anything.

He started collecting bikes in 1994 and opened the museum as a 501(C) 3 nonprofit the following year in downtown Birmingham.

Another pivotal moment came in 1997 when Barber sent 21 of his bikes

to the Guggenheim in New York for The Art of the Motorcycle exhibit, which traveled to Chicago and Spain.

And that sparked his desire to create a world-class museum back home. The new museum with its 16-turn, 2.38 mile track, opened to the public in 2003.

Today, surrounded by a vast and growing collection of motorcycles, three-wheelers, and so on, Barber refuses to single out just one. “Well, you know you really don’t have a favorite child,” he says with a smile.

“But if I had to pick some that were AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 45

S P OTLI GH T

It really is a beautiful, beautiful park that happens to have a racetrack in it of great interest to me and great affection, it would be the John Surtees’ motorcycles that he used to win world championships. And it’s because of my relationship with John over the years and our friendship over the years, and him coming to the museum and racing the bikes, or driving the race bikes on the track and demonstrating them,” Barber says. “ I’ve got to say that those kind of have a real soft spot in my heart.”

The Surtees bikes have their own section in the museum, which has artfully arranged motorcycles throughout – cop bikes over here, military bikes (American, British, and German) over there, scooters here, motocross bikes there. And if you stand at certain angles, you can actually see a sort of tree of motorcycles extending up to the ceiling.

Barber says the tree didn’t turn out exactly as he’d hoped. “It didn’t work as well as I thought it would because we had to make spaces between the floors.

I wanted a tree that goes from floor to floor all the way up, and it kind of does.

But you can see where it’s interrupted where the floor is, and it doesn’t have that visual effect that I was really after.”

Barber doesn’t give the impression that he’s really bothered by the tree effect and neither do the visitors wandering through the galleries pointing, taking pictures. By all accounts the motorcycle museum and the racecourse and park around it, are a hit.

“A lot of times … I tell people, ‘Come look at my museum; I’ve got a motorcycle museum.’ And you can see their eyes kind of roll back in their head, and they say, ‘Oh, God, I’m going to go look at an old metal building full of dead motorcycles,” Barber says.

“But if I can get you in that place, it changes you and you have a different feeling for the city and a different feeling for the area because of the quality of what we’re doing there.” n 46 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 47

INSIDE THE OEMS New Flyer Industries, Anniston location , provided unparalleled opportunities for customers to test out the latest in bus tech.

get on the bus New Flyer is providing an electric transportation education in Anniston to customers throughout North America TEXT BY: MICHELLE LOVE / PHOTOS COURTESY OF NEW FLYER INDUSTRIES

E

lectric cars and buses are no longer a work of science fiction. According to Mass Transit Magazine, in 2017 the number of delivered electric buses in the United States jumped by 83 percent in the last year. While that may come as a surprise to some, the team at New Flyer Industries were well ahead of the game and prepared for the surge.

Wayne Joseph, the president of Transit Bus Business at New Flyer Industries, says the company jumped on the opportunity to educate those on the benefits of electric battery-driven buses.

“We thought it would be in everyone’s best interest if we built a Vehicle Innovation Center [VIC] where we could bring customers and suppliers together for educational purposes because there’s a lot of misinformation or lack of clarity

in both battery electric vehicles and autonomous driving,” Joseph explains.

The company built it’s VIC in Anniston, Alabama. The VIC is the first innovation lab of its kind in North America, according to New Flyer.

With locations in Canada, New York, Alabama, and Minnesota, New Flyer Industries is the largest bus manufacturing company in North America and delivers buses to clients, mainly various transit authorities, across the country. This year alone, Joseph says New Flyer will deliver 2,800 buses throughout North America. “It’s everywhere. Right this week we have 32 different customers in our production facilities so we’ll get orders anywhere from 1 to 2 buses to several hundred buses anywhere from New York to Miami

We wanted it to be interactive so it’s a combination between a classroom and a hands-on learning center. We’ve set up displays where potential customers and mechanics or anybody that needs further education in these areas can interact with the technology. —Wayne Joseph, the president of Transit Bus Business at New Flyer Industries

48 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

to Columbus, Ohio … there aren’t many cities that we don’t have a significant presence in,” he says.

The 30,000 square foot VIC was opened in October 2017. The Anniston location, Joseph says, serves more than convenience. “The reason we picked Anniston is because … it’s the first [manufacturing facility] where we started manufacturing battery electric buses in large volumes. It’s also centrally located with easy accessibility to the Atlanta Airport and [in the past 20 years] Alabama has become a magnet for the automotive industry.” The Anniston location currently builds on average 14 buses per week and the goal is to increase that number with further investments in the electric bus programs.

According to its website, New Flyer “actively supports over 44,000 heavyduty transit buses (New Flyer, NABI, and Orion) currently in service, of which 7,300 are powered by electric motors and battery propulsion and 1,600 are zero-emission.”

Upon entering the VIC, customers

are first greeted with a video message from New Flyer’s CEO, Paul Soubry; from there they can make their way through a visual history of New Flyer Industries, see options regarding different battery styles and battery charging stations, and get a closer look at what makes an electric bus tick.

“We had this idea for the Vehicle Innovation Center but we had no idea what a success it would be,” Joseph recalls. “We started looking at the center and we wanted it to be interactive so it’s a combination between a classroom and a hands-on learning center. We’ve set up displays where potential customers and mechanics or anybody that needs further education in these areas can interact with the technology.”

The main hands-on technology of the VIC is the electric bus simulation piece, which allows individuals to experience numerous possible situations a driver may experience behind the wheel. The simulation provides various weather conditions from heavy rain to snow and customers can even experience what it feels like to have a tire blow out on the road. The simulation is the world’s first application of the Digital Projection E-Vision 4K projector and Joseph says it is one of the more popular aspects of the VIC. Everyone from board members to bus drivers enjoys the experience the VIC provides, he says. Clients can experiment with a computer program which helps them understand how some custom buses can be improved upon. With the touch of a finger, clients can configure possible distance traveled and typical fuel saved based on variables such as state of battery life, the number of passengers, and outside weather conditions. For example, a bus with a brand new battery series that’s full with passengers may travel farther in a moderate climate versus a hot or cold climate. While these factors may seem insignificant to the untrained eye, they are vital issues to consider when ordering electric buses.

Though the premise of electricpowered transportation is nothing new in the automotive industry, Joseph says customers are still unsure about the

specifics. That’s where the VIC comes in. “Our customers are interested in electric buses but they don’t know what questions to ask or the specifications, so our mission of this Vehicle Innovation Center was to explore advanced technology, foster discussion of the education and dialogue, engage anybody that’s going to come in contact with these vehicles, and generate commitments to the quality and safety,” he explains.

Joseph insists that any apprehension towards electric running transportation is not necessary. “The technology is not that new and it’s certainly not new to us. New Flyer has always been the leader in the industry … whether it was providing the first low floor bus that doesn’t have any steps to get in or a number of electronic firsts. But we have a very significant engineering and prototype shop where

we do a lot of development work and we focus very heavily on being the leader in our area of expertise which is transportation vehicles.”

New Flyer plans to invest over $9.1 million over the next two years in their electric bus manufacturing programs. Joseph says that the next logical step in the automotive industry, and specifically with buses, is moving towards autonomous driving, which would help with safety and consistency.

No matter what lies ahead, New Flyer assures it will continue to work towards universal acceptance of electric run transportation, and they want their customers to look to the company’s history as a reflection of their mission.

“We’re very proud of our heritage,” Joseph says. “We’ve proven we’re willing to invest in moving things forward.” n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 49

WORKF ORC E DEVELOPME NT

THINCing About What Comes Next

Growing competition encouraged Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia to seek out and invest in creative ways to future-proof their workforce

BY AUTUMN PRIVETT / PHOTOS COURTESY OF: THINC ACADEMY / 3CiCONNECT

C

hildren are the future. It’s a phrase that’s become such a part of our collective thinking that it’s attributed to pop stars, Thai proverbs, politicians, and humanitarians. It’s something we say we believe, but one automotive company in rural Georgia is actually acting on it.

Since opening in November of 2009, Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia (KMMG) has created more than 11,700 jobs and produced more than 2 million vehicles, according to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. But with dozens of auto and manufacturing companies moving to Georgia, the Kia leadership quickly realized that recruiting skilled workers could become a challenge if

they didn’t start investing in developing the next generation of workers.

As a first step, Kia reached out to Troup County leaders to gauge interest and see what resources were available.

Stuart Countess, Chief Administrative Officer for KMMG, says the community was already thinking about the need for area businesses by the time Kia approached them. Other nearby companies like Milliken and Interface were also growing.

The county organized a workforce committee that determined the area needed a specialized college and career program, which led to the creation of THINC College & Career Academy. Kia was one of the first companies to invest

The community overall sees [THINC Academy] as an opportunity to change individuals’ lives. . . . They still see the growth that’s going on in the area and the importance of helping to develop the workforce.

— Stuart Countess, Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia

50 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

in this new venture, contributing $3 million to get the process started.

THINC Academy is a charter school located on the campus of West Georgia Technical College and is part of the Troup County School System. It’s designed to get students thinking about their future careers and to model what they will experience in the business world. For example, THINC has a CEO, not a principal, who oversees the school and curriculum.

The school provides students a unique opportunity to learn about different career pathways – and to begin working toward those careers – while they’re still in high school. Currently, THINC offers six pathways: health sciences, mechatronics, STEM, energy, business, and marketing.

Local manufacturing plants like Kia are most interested in mechatronics, a combination of electronics and mechanical engineering. “Many companies were having trouble finding certain skill sets — people who had good electrical backgrounds, mechanical backgrounds,” Countess says. “There was clearly a lack of individuals with those skills. And we recognized that in

our own general hiring processes.”

Countess says that these soft skills are just as important to creating a good workplace environment and contributing to the overall success of the team as the technical skills students’ learn. And there’s data to back this up.

A recent study by iCIMS Hiring Insight found that 94 percent of recruiting professionals believe that employees with soft skills are more likely to be promoted to leadership positions than their counterparts who lack those skills.

THINC Academy is a half-day program with block classes. Students attend classes at their local high school for part of the day and go to THINC for a mix of pathway classes such as engineering or accounting and core classes such as English or government.

But unlike a traditional classroom, THINC Academy uses a hands-on learning approach. “If you can actually practice it on some of the equipment and tools that are available at THINC, then learning becomes a lot easier,” Countess says. To this end, Kia recently donated an additional $400,000 to the school to build a new science lab for the students.

Of the six pathways offered at THINC Academy, mechatronics is the one that impacts Kia’s future workforce development most directly. “The mechatronics curriculum is teaching these young individuals what’s required to operate robotics and other mechanical devices,” Countess says. “They’re getting in an early insight into such things as PLC logic and other electrical experiences.” Kia has collaborated with THINC to develop the mechatronics program in such a way that students who complete the path graduate with the equivalent of an associate’s degree.

Even though Kia employees do not teach at THINC, they are still involved in the continuing success of the school.

Some participate in an advisory council that works with the mechatronics teachers to give insights into upcoming technologies and skill gaps they see, while others give plant tours. Countess says both students and teachers benefit from the real-world knowledge they gain

from interacting with Kia employees.

Career pathways are electives, so if a student starts out on one pathway but then decides it is not for her, she can choose to go down another pathway.

This gives students a chance to start thinking about career options while still in high school, without adding on additional years during college.

College and workplace preparedness is a key part of the THINC Academy curriculum. The school has more than a dozen programs run by local businesses to help students prepare for the next step in their careers. These programs range from teaching interview skills to externships at local businesses and career-related jobs that earn them high school credit. Students also have the opportunity to take dual enrollment classes to give them a head start on their college course work.

Just three years in, THINC Academy is already seeing positive results. For the 2015-16 academic year, nearly 500 students in 10th to 12th grade were enrolled. They finished the year with 99 percent attendance and graduation rates. For the upcoming year the school expects to have between 600 and 650 students. As for college enrollment, Kia estimates that two-thirds of THINC Academy students enroll in a post-

secondary school after graduating.

The school’s success would not be possible without the overwhelming support from the community.

Countess notes that finding people to participate on the school board or in other activities has been easy.

“The community overall sees [THINC Academy] as an opportunity to change individuals’ lives,” he says. “They’re positive about this. They still see the growth that’s going on in the area and the importance of helping to develop the workforce.”

If companies are on the fence about getting involved in schools like THINC Academy, Countess recommends they get engaged sooner rather than later. “Industries have to be able to communicate to the educators of the world, ‘Here’s what we need to see in the next one to five years for students in order to be successful.’”

He adds that it is essential for companies and education systems to find ways to partner together to prepare the next generation of workers for the jobs that will be available to them.

“Those who aren’t involved,” Countess says, “We strongly encourage that they do get involved in this, because you’re only going to ensure your success for the future by actively participating.” n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 51

B E S T P R AC T I C E S

Safeguarding the Supply Chain

An explosion and fire at this plant had a ripple effect on production lines throughout the automotive sector.

Common-sense planning is vital – but you might want to supplement it with targeted analytics, a dive into big data and a move to the cloud

BY LINDA H. LAMB

T

he fire happened in the small city of Eaton Rapids, Michigan. But some major automakers around the country got burned.

In the aftermath, any company would do well to assess its own risk management strategies – and the many mishaps and disasters that could mess up its supply chain.

Eaton Rapids, just south of Lansing, is home to Meridian Magnesium Products of America. It’s a key supplier of lighterweight magnesium parts that help automakers meet increasingly tough mileage standards. So, when a massive fire damaged the Meridian plant on May 2, a sudden shortage of magnesium parts affected suppliers and manufacturers from the Detroit area to the Deep South and beyond.

According to news reports: • Ford Motor Co. halted production of its F-150 pickups in Dearborn, Michigan, and Kansas City, Missouri,

and suspended production of the F-Series Super Duty pickup at Louisville, Kentucky.

• Some shifts were canceled at the Mercedes-Benz U.S. International Plant in Vance, Alabama.

• GM halted production of full-size vans at its plant in Wentzville, Missouri.

• Interruptions also were reported at BMW’s SUV plant near Spartanburg, South Carolina, and at Fiat Chrysler’s Pacifica minivan plant in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

“Manufacturers take supply chains for granted until there is a disruption,” says Sree Rajagopalan, CEO of Murano Corporation, headquartered at Research Triangle Park in Durham, North Carolina.

Murano works with manufacturers and distributors to help them reduce risks from such calamities. It uses a cloud-based system, Supply Chain Manager, to predict and plan for

Disasters like the Meridian plant fire are rarely spontaneous events. Usually, there are a series of preceding events that lead to a major disaster. —Sree Rajagopalan, CEO, Murano Corp.

52 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

disruptions, using supply chain artificial intelligence (AI).

Rajagopalan compares it to a storm.

“It’s like hurricane preparedness. These things will happen, but how do you prepare for them?”

Predicting Problems The Murano CEO believes use of AI and cloud-based data analysis can help companies avoid the tunnel vision that limits knowledge about supply chain partners. Too often, he says, companies use systems that do not exchange information with external partners.

That’s risky in an era of complex supply chains with vulnerabilities upstream and downstream. According to a 2016 survey by the Travelers insurance company, 31 percent of companies have a primary supplier located in an area prone to risky weather, natural disasters or political conflict. Almost half get at least 25 percent of their materials from a single supplier.

Using cloud technology “breaks down the information islands, facilitates better collaboration between supply chain partners, leverages big data and

incorporates predictive intelligence into the planning process,” Rajagopalan says.

Better data enables better planning and better decisions. Sounds good, but could cloud technology and AI analysis prevent the scramble for alternate suppliers after an event like the Meridian fire? Rajagopalan thinks so.

“Disasters like the Meridian plant fire are rarely spontaneous events,” he says.

“Usually, there are a series of preceding events that lead to a major disaster.”

He cited some news reports that emerged after the fire. For example, the Lansing State Journal quoted nearby residents saying smaller fires broke out frequently at the Eaton Rapids plant. The Detroit Free Press reported that the plant had a history of citations, violations and fines related to employee safety.

Cloud-based software can analyze big data and provide more complete information about factors like safety records, along with predictions about whether supply chain disruptions might be likely in the future, he says.

“Businesses can make better decisions with more timely, relevant, accurate and critical supply chain data,” he says.

Robert P. Hartwig, a risk management expert at the University of South Carolina says it’s important for companies to not only spot potential weak links in their supply chains, but predict the worst-case scenarios.

“It’s unrealistic to expect that all of your suppliers are going to have pristine safety records, when we’re talking about the auto industry,” says Hartwig, a clinical associate professor and director of the university’s Center for Risk and Uncertainty Management.

The trick is to gauge whether a The Ford F-150 and Super-Duty saw delays because of the Meridian fire.

Risk management is a multi-stage process, and increasingly, it’s a field that’s more technology-driven.

potential problem is likely to cause a serious disruption, he says. “Risk management is a multi-stage process, and increasingly, it’s a field that’s more technology-driven,” Hartwig says.

Looming Risks And Worries While technology can suggest supply chain solutions, it also can pose problems, Hartwig notes.

“A brave new area for insurers is cyber risk,” he says. “It’s something that keeps risk managers up at night.

It’s also a major concern for supply chain disruption.”

Automotive industry supply chains reach beyond state lines and across oceans. Depending on its target, a cyberattack could keep planes on the ground, hinder efforts to track ships, cause massive power outages – even disrupt transportation so that employees can’t get to work.

“Many companies operate with very thin inventories, and they have global supply chains that are potentially fragile,” Hartwig says.

Lack of diversification magnifies the risks, he says, citing Toyota’s experience after the catastrophic 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant damage in Japan in 2011. Though Toyota manufactures around the world, so many Japanese-made components were affected that shortages plagued the company for months.

But it doesn’t take a magnitude 9 earthquake to cripple operations, says Rajagopalan, whose company works with Tier 1 suppliers to Mercedes and Honda.

“Minor damage could cause major disruption to a supply chain – for example, a local power outage,” he says.

—Robert P. Hartwig, director, Center for Risk and Uncertainty Management, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina “You’d be surprised how many suppliers don’t have a backup generator.”

Supply chain analytics aim to do more than just connect the dots between vendors’ track records and their possible risks. Rajagopalan says three other key areas for analysis are avoiding excess inventory, spotting and correcting invoicing errors, and identifying supplier quality issues due to defective parts.

“These three wasteful activities can lead to a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ situation,” posing longer-term, financial disruptions, he says.

Weathering Different Storms It’s hurricane season. Many automotive manufacturers and suppliers in the South are potentially in a hurricane’s path. Rajagopalan offers some advice – in addition to the need for emergency generators, of course.

If possible, companies should aim to locate alternatives to single-sourced raw materials and manufacturers and suppliers should prioritize effective onsite drainage and ways to handle excess rainfall. Hartwig adds a cautionary note about another kind of calamity that can affect supply chains.

“While a lot of focus might be on fires or natural disasters that impact manufacturing capabilities, there is another storm brewing: trade wars looming with virtually all U.S. trade partners,” he says.

Any supply chain that extends overseas could be imperiled by trade disputes, Hartwig says.

“The best risk management in the world could still leave companies vulnerable to the uncertainties of politics,” he says. n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 53

Supplier Profile

ABL-Technic

What this German company is doing from Fairburn, Georgia might be unexpected, but it’s something the automotive industry and other customers can’t do without TEXT BY: BY NICK PATTERSON / PHOTOS BY: HENRI HOLLIS

H

ard to believe but even people in the automotive industry can be surprised by some of what goes into producing a new car.

“I worked at BMW manufacturing for ten years, and never would have known that there was a business model for something like this,” says Yolanda Upshaw, the general manager of ABLTechnic in Fairburn, Georgia.

The business model she refers to, the one she and her crew of 20 are

responsible for carrying out every day, involves the surprisingly intricate and remarkably – environmentally friendly – art and science of removing paint.

ABL-Technic, a German company which put its first U.S. plant in Fairburn about six years ago, has a footprint that includes 26 locations in 15 countries across the globe. And taking off paint is what they do everywhere.

“Our tagline is We Strip Paint Worldwide,” Upshaw says.

54 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

What ABL does is more important in car manufacturing than you may realize.

The company serves all the OEMs from South Carolina to Mississippi, and their Tier 1 and some Tier 2 suppliers. How? By removing paint from parts before the car is put together.

“Say a Tier 2 supplier who has E-coated something and the paint is not to the proper standards, we remove that paint so … they don’t have to discard the parts; they can repaint those parts,” Upshaw explains.

“For Tier 1 there’s tools and fixtures that they use, say, in a bumper manufacturing … and there’s a lot of paint. So anyone that has a paint line, we service them,” she says. Upshaw offers a scenario where the excess paint adhering to tools and fixtures can affect the performance of those devices, so removing that paint can actually make the difference in how well a given device does its job. And, says, Upshaw, removing unnecessary or excess paint from the bumper itself can make the difference between keeping and using that bumper or sending it to the discard pile.

Another example involves robots painting doors. There are devices that make it possible for robots to properly paint doors, which requires opening and closing them. Excess paint on the fixtures and tools may make it hard for them to properly hold those parts. ABL strips the excess away, eliminating contaminants in the paint line and keeping the operations going smoothly. “We’re a service provider that allows them to meet their quality standards,” Upshaw says.

ABL has two basic processes for removing paint. “We have a thermal process and a chemical process line, and depending upon the tool or fixture or product depends on which one we use,” Upshaw explains. “On the thermal side, we have an oven that gets up to 1,800 degrees in the afterburner and it basically burns the organic materials and leaves the inorganic materials intact. It’s called a pyrolysis oven. So, then there’s

ash on the parts. We have to remove that ash because that’s a contaminant and we have a shot blast machine, a roller conveyer shot blast machine that we then place the parts on to remove the ash and make sure that there’s no dust and contaminants and also shot peen material that remain when we send the parts back.”

Shot peening, by the way, is similar to sand blasting, except that is specifically removes contaminants from parts and rehardens the surface of the parts, Upshaw says.

Keeping the work clean and handing uncontaminated parts to their clients is just as important in the chemical process, Upshaw notes. “We want to make sure that once we place the fixtures or tools into the chemical baths, we strip the paint, that we wash them thoroughly afterwards to remove any paint and as well as chemicals from the tools and fixtures,” she says.

Currently running two shifts, ABL wants to expand its operations, Upshaw says, not only to get the plant up to full capacity but to add locations. “One of my goals coming on here is to expand the footprint for ABL in the south, starting with the southeast … because we like to stay within a three-hour radius of our customers,” she says. “So we try to stay within a three-hour radius, but right now we have some customers that are six hours away from us. So the goal is to expand the footprint, but to first make this operation the lighthouse for the ones that are to follow.”

Close to home in Fairburn, ABL has some customers that are much smaller than automotive manufacturers, the kind of customers that connect them to their community.

“We did a project last year for a high school football team – it’s a Christian school down the street,” Upshaw says.

“They had no budget – they needed to strip their sign, their scoreboard. And so I took it and I said, ‘We’re going to do this for free, guys, and we’re going to do this because we want to support our community.’ We want to be able to reach back and do something good for

someone else.”

ABL even takes walk-ins from the community. “We had a lady come in that had a 50 year old cast iron table that she wanted to repaint,” Upshaw says.

“It had been painted with layers and layers of paint, and we burned it and put it through the shot peen machine, and it was just so nice to see her jumping up and down for joy because this was a family heirloom that she had. She could now paint it and preserve it.”

Another way ABL works with its community is recycling water. “We have a big project where we’re working on recycling our water that we use, because on the chemical lines we use a lot of water to wash the parts. So we’re putting in a water recycling farm in our facility,” Upshaw says, noting a connection to another, more international project the Georgia facility is spearheading.

“I just heard on the radio the other day about how we can adopt a water well in Africa. So I was like, that would be cool if I can just get the team to give a dollar a month,” she says.

Between the time she gave this interview, and the time you’re reading this story, ABL got its well-fundraiser up and running with the goal of raising $500 for the well, and the company promising to match all employee contributions.

Even with such outreach efforts, few people know much about ABL in the local community, but Upshaw hopes to change that. She wants ABL known as

a company that cares for its neighbors, even with the industrial nature of its business.

“We use innovative environmentally friendly solutions to remove paint — that’s key,” she says. “You know, you would think with an oven that’s burning the type of paints that we burn that you’d see large plumes of dark smoke coming from our oven.

But there’s no smoke coming from our oven because we have afterburners that incinerate the chemicals that are in the air so that it doesn’t get released into the environment.

“And the same thing with the chemical baths that we use: we don’t use chemicals that are not friendly to the environment in our stripping processes.

No skull and crossbones type chemicals are allowed in ABL processes or in ABL facilities.”

At this point, it’s about doing the job well, but also telling the story, Upshaw notes. “There’s definitely a desire to do more in the community, but a lot of people don’t understand or know what we do,” she says. “The first thing that people think when I say we strip paint in automotive ... They’re like, ‘Wait a minute, my BMW doesn’t have fresh paint on it?’”

Questions like that open the way to telling an unusual automotive story.

“There’s just so much opportunity,” according to Upshaw. “It’s just getting the word out.” n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 55

Supplier Profile

Richardson Molding Automotive components are one part of a continually growing business in plastic parts TEXT BY: NICK PATTERSON / PHOTO BY: KAYE ROWELL

W

hether you open the door to your mailbox or to your new Mississippi-produced Nissan Titan, you might be handling the work of Richardson Molding.

As is often the case with automotive suppliers, Richardson is a versatile manufacturer, equally at home making covers and vents for batteries as they are making door handles and other parts for cars. As long as it’s injection molded plastic, there’s a chance its in Richardson’s area of interest.

Richardson is headquartered in Indiana, but currently its Philadelphia, Mississippi plant is a Tier 2 supplier to Nissan and a Tier 1 supplier to Kasai, North America, which maintains a plant in Madison, Mississippi, as well as Alabama, Tennessee and Ohio.

Kasai makes interior products for cars, including trim for doors and roofs. Since locating in the U.S. in 1986, the company has been expanding worldwide.

The path to automotive was a long one for Richardson Molding says Bill Johns, manager of the 150,000 square foot plant, located on 25.4 acres. Johns is expecting to help oversee a $5.256 million expansion of the Richardson plant which is expected to create 53 new jobs.

“We had a groundbreaking ceremony [in Philadelphia] on May 27th of 1977.

The first product that we ran in the plant started in April of 1978, and we ran some

container and covers for the battery market,” Johns says. “Your x size, your superior, your U.S. battery, all those. We then, in 1980, got into vent production where we made vents for those batteries, as well.”

In fact, Richardson Molding is a leading maker of proprietary and custom plastic injection-molded products for the industrial lead-acid battery market, producing more than 8 million containers for batteries every year. The company began in 1858 in Des Plaines, Illinois, making paper and paper products before turning their attention to wooden battery cases in 1910. The company introduced its thermo plastic battery containers in 1968.

Fast forward a few years to 2011, and things started to change at Richardson in Philadelphia. “We started building product, some garnishes, some handles – door handles and things of that nature – for the automotive,” Johns says. “And then in 2012, we started making mailboxes.”

Earlier this year, Richardson ceased mailbox production, but the automotive aspect of their business lives on. A big indicator of how much automotive is expected to figure into the company’s future: Richardson hired Johns, who has worked in the injection molding business for 25 years. Before Richardson Molding, he worked for International Automotive

56 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Components in Anniston, Alabama.

With a product line that runs from plastic containers to anything made out of PVC, Richardson continues to diversify. That’s what was behind its move to automotive.

“They wanted to branch out. They wanted to become more of a custom molder to branch out into the automotive market,” Richardson says. “That’s my forte is automotive – I’ve been that my whole career, between supply chain manager and operations managers and supervisors, it was always in the plastic automotive market. They knew that was something that was growing, right? I mean, they’re always going to build cars so they’ll always need batteries for cars, and they’ll always need interior plastic for cars, too.”

Longevity and Community Richardson’s website suggests that the company’s more than 130 years haven’t made it complacent. “Even though we’ve been around for a long time, we feel like we’re just getting started,” the company proclaims. But it does take pride in its longtime in the business.

“The longevity of the employees here [in Philadelphia] is mindboggling,” Johns says. “We just celebrated our 40th anniversary about a month ago, and …I recognized 8 employees that had 40-plus years here. And then, I’ve got another

42 employees right now that have over 30 years.

“It’s just amazing. And I think the type of manager that I am, …it was a good fit for the plant. I mean, I look forward to being here 30 years and I’m hoping some of these 30 yearers are still here.”

Johns describes Richardson as having a “very good work atmosphere…. We actually hire from, like, five different counties around. I mean, people drive here three or four counties away to work here.”

Richardson offers apprenticeship programs, which Johns promoted last month with Neshoba Central High School teachers to give opportunity to local students. Apprentices are expected to be dependable, hard working and to pay attention to detail and develop good communication skills, according to Johns’ presentation.

Not surprising, then, that Richardson has a strong team sensibility and tangible connections to the community.

The company participates in monthly economic development meetings with other businesses in the area, and takes pride in events like a golf tournament that raises money for cancer treatment.

Richardson participated as a major sponsor in the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks annual Youth Catfish Rodeo event at Neshoba Lake just a few weeks ago, Johns says.

“We had over 400 kids at the event a few Saturdays ago,” he says. “It went really, really well.”

Richardson, Johns says, is “very much a family-oriented company,” which he hopes will matter to automotive clients – along with the experience level maintained by such a stable workforce.

“In my automotive past, our turnover rate at a lot of the companies was so extreme to where… you’d bring in 20 people and you’d have to turn over 18 of them within a month. But that’s just not in existence here,” he says.

“When they come here, they’re here. So you’re going to have the same operator building your parts for the next 20 or 30 years… They’re going to know the part intimately.” n AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 57

Faces of the Industry

DRIVEN Head Of KAIA Makes Kentucky’s Dominance Known On National Scene Dave Tatman left manufacturing to ensure the bluegrass state doesn’t take a back seat in the auto industry TEXT BY: CARA D. CLARK / INTERVIEW: NICK PATTERSON

I

t’s an American automotive icon synonymous with sport and speed and sex appeal — the two-seat Corvette. This pop-culture phenom dating back to 1953 is a vehicle Dave Tatman, head of the Kentucky Automotive Industry Association, knows in and out. After all, he watched a steady line-up of the sleek, high performance cars roll off the manufacturing floor with something like paternal pride. In the end, Tatman wound up a 34-year career with General Motors working as manager of the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky. And he loved it.

“It was the greatest job on the planet,” Tatman says. “It was so much fun. I built out the sixth generation Corvette, and I launched the seventh generation Corvette while I was there, so that’s the brand new Stingray that’s on the road today.”

His leadership at the Corvette plant was the culmination of a string of jobs in GM locations in three countries and on two continents — 13 total.

There were a few potholes along that expressway to success.

“I had been around the world with GM, all in manufacturing, and I loved every minute of my career with GM. There were some fraught times. We went through bankruptcy while I was there. But when we came to Kentucky, I just saw it as another step on the journey.”

Kentucky became his final destination with GM when he and his wife fell in love with the state, and his daughter, close to finishing high school, was over the moon about the move. A long-time equestrian, when the teen was faced with leaving her Michigan friends behind for the bluegrass state, instead of being reluctant, her first thought was, “Dad, if we’re going to move to Kentucky, we could buy a horse farm.”

Tatman’s initial negative reply was short-lived. Today, he’s a horse farm owner, and that means he’s sunk his roots deeply in the turf, as well as many an hour in chores maintaining the farm. As an avid trout fisherman and bird hunter, he enjoys the outdoors and even recently added a birddog pup to the family.

“We love the farm and still do love our life in Kentucky,” he says. “When

We didn’t hold ourselves out as an automotive state; it just wasn’t something that was on the radar screen. The first thing we had to do was establish our identity as a player in the global automotive business. And I think we’ve done a pretty effective job of that.

58 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

the time inevitably came for GM to look for another opportunity for me, I decided that 34 years was enough. I decided to retire.”

That was in 2014 - 34 years to the day from when he began his career with GM on Feb. 28, 1980. By that time, Tatman had been actively working with the Cabinet for Economic Development in the state.

“I spent $131 million of GM’s money to tool the factory that built the new car, and we had worked with the state on some workforce and other issues, (including tax incentives),” Tatman says.

It should not have been surprising when shortly after retirement, he got a call from Larry Hayes, then cabinet secretary for Kentucky’s Economic Development Cabinet, congratulating him on the end of a successful career.

The next question was more unexpected.

“He says, ‘But what are you going to do now?’” Tatman recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, Larry, I’m done with work for General Motors, but I’m probably not done working.’

“And he said, ‘Good, because the governor and I have got an idea. We think that Kentucky, given our size and scope in automotive, really ought to have a statewide automotive association like most of the other states do, particularly our friends in southeast that you know well.’”

Hayes went on to explain they envisioned a stand-alone agency apart from the government.

Recognizing Tatman’s insider experience with the industry made him their prime candidate and his retirement fleeting. By the first of July 2014, Tatman began his new role as executive’s director of the KAIA, building the organization from the ground up.

The 12-member KAIA board of directors includes representatives from GM, Ford and Toyota, all OEMS with plants in Kentucky, as well as eight other tier-one suppliers, and the Cabinet for Economic Development.

“Obviously from the very beginning, we’ve had the endorsement of the executive branch and the legislative branch, as well as many, many others throughout the state,” says Tatman, who began working with Governor Steve Beshear and now works with current Governor Matt Bevin.

With 500 automotive manufacturers in the state, 80 of Kentucky’s 120 120 counties have at least one manufacturing plant.

“I represent automotive manufacturers from Pikeville to Paducah and from Florence to Franklin,” Tatman says. “I get to make contact with those people all over the state. And I might be talking to a 35-employee machine shop in Paris, Kentucky, just as quickly as I might be talking to Toyota in Georgetown, but (I’m) really getting the perspective of all members of the automotive ecosystem here in the state on things that matter to us. I enjoy that a great deal.”

Don’t get him wrong, he thrived in the high-pressure world of manufacturing those gorgeous Corvettes, it’s just that he feels he’s paying his experience forward in a way: “I loved those days,” Tatman says. “I was born to do that job, but now I get to help my colleagues who still do those jobs. I get to help them in ways that I always hoped that somebody was (when I was in manufacturing). I didn’t know if anybody was or not, and now there’s

somebody who is, and that’s me.”

When the original charter for the Kentucky Automotive Industry Association was set forth, it included four objectives. The first was branding for Kentucky automotive to recognize its exalted position as the third largest state in the country in automotive production. Tatman wanted that fact to shine.

“At the time, we didn’t act like it,” Tatman says. “No one knew it.

We didn’t hold ourselves out as an automotive state; it just wasn’t something that was on the radar screen. The first thing we had to do was establish our identity as a player in the global automotive business.

And I think we’ve done a pretty effective job of that.”

To keep that recognition at the forefront, Tatman maximizes media coverage and makes presentations all over the state. That translates into a lot of time on the road — enough to put 120,000 miles on a truck he bought new less than four years ago.

“I get a lot of windshield time,” Tatman says. “Fortunately, this is a pretty state.”

Tatman says the auto industry is continuing its growth through attracting new business and expanding existing operations, as well as infusing new capital investment dollars.

“We have attracted up over probably $7.5 billion worth of projects in automotive fields in the last five to six years,” he says. “That represents 20,000 new jobs. It’s been a really good time to do a position like this because the automotive industry has been on a pretty good run since we came out of the recession in 2009, and that certainly continued from ’14 on when I’ve been doing this. There’s a lot of energy around that.”

Having nailed the first objective of branding, KAIA turned its attention to advocacy through legislation and policy decisions, and to assuming a leadership position in an industry that employs close to 100,000 people and contributes more than $14 billion

I represent automotive manufacturers from Pikeville to Paducah and from Florence to Franklin. I get to make contact with those people all over the state. And I might be talking to a 35-employee machine shop in Paris, Ky., just as quickly as I might be talking to Toyota in Georgetown, but (I’m) really getting the perspective of all members of the automotive ecosystem here in the state on things that matter to us. I enjoy that a great deal. a year to Kentucky’s GDP. Tatman’s focus includes seminars, conferences, webinars and regional forums to help educate the industry about tech advances and best practices.

The fourth objective is workforce development – an issue in Kentucky as it is across the industry.

“Workforce is a big, big issue in our state, as it is in any automotive state. I work with school systems all over the state; I work with all kinds of different state agencies in terms of workforce development issues. I work with the universities, technology transfer, and innovation, entrepreneurship-type start-ups to benefit our industry.”

Tatman is factoring in all those details as he focuses on continuing to supply the talent needed to continue to move the industry forward.

Tatman routinely attends events on behalf of the automotive industry in Kentucky.

“It used to be that when I first started going to like the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit or the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Michigan, I’d go there and people would say, ‘What’s Kentucky doing here?’

“And now when I go there they say, ‘What are you guys doing in Kentucky? It’s really booming!’ n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 59

Faces of the Industry We want to be a leader in sharing ideas and through leadership, making sure that people are having opportunities, whether through our events or our meetings.

A

Steering Automotive In South Carolina To Strong Future Amy Tinsley’s cooperative approach brings together needs of multiple industries for the good of the state TEXT BY: CARA D. CLARK / INTERVIEW: NICK PATTERSON 60 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

my Tinsley, head of the South Carolina Automotive Council, learned an important lesson from her father, who has influenced not only the way she looks at the world, but her strong sense of values.

“My dad was a stickler,” Tinsley said.

“If you say you’re going to do something by this time, then you better do it.”

That philosophy, one of many things he taught her, serves her well in her leadership position. Tinsley’s strong paternal figure is a self-taught engineer who works on large industrial projects, bidding jobs based on his assessment of the construction needs or equipment upgrades. He not only taught his daughters a strong work ethic, he spent the extra time in showing them what makes something tick, bringing the manufacturing industry to life in a fascinating way.

“My dad was always very hands on with us, building stuff, teaching us how things work, that type of thing,” Tinsley says. “And so I laugh today because before I was doing the Auto Council, I worked for Duke Energy which is one of the largest utilities in the country for a long time, and then my sister works for Nucor Steel.”

Seeing her father build their home in Camden, South Carolina, was especially enlightening for the young girls as their dad worked with reclaimed materials before it became trendy.

“As people were redoing buildings or tearing up or tearing down … demolishing and old building or church, he would contact the people to see if he could salvage some of the old wood. In the flooring of our dining room, he can say, ‘Well, this floor was

the ceiling of whatever church, and it’s from 1893.”

Besides gaining that appreciation for history from her father, Tinsley said, watching him afforded her a fascinating perspective of the construction world.

“We grew up watching him build things,” she explained. “He would get us involved in little project. We didn’t go on a ton of job sites just because usually that’s not allowed, but he always had big drawings – industrial size drawings on the drawing table.”

Seeing her father pour over intricate building designs piqued her interest and has made her savvy enough to fix those annoying little home maintenance projects that crop up, sometimes with her dad on speaker phone to guide her through the more technical points.

More importantly, witnessing her father’s large-scale projects and having an idea of the minute details that go into making such operations successful set her up for success with the sort of long-term commitment it takes to work with an organization like the SCAC. In college, Tinsley served as an intern at the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance — the SCAC is a division of SCMA — furthering her understanding of what is involved in manufacturing. Working with a utility like Duke Energy broadened her horizons in seeing the many facilities involved.

“Of course, a lot of our largest manufacturers are the utility’s largest customers, so seeing it from that side of automotive manufacturing and manufacturers as very big users of power … you understand that their business is critically impacted by the utility business,” Tinsley says.

Seeing how businesses are intertwined shows “how important it is they have the resources they need in order to do their job and complete their products. Whether it’s a completed vehicle or a component part, it all ties back together,” Tinsley says.

In her role with SCAC, Tinsley visits OEMs and suppliers to ensure

she’s up-to-date on numbers, issues and needs in the industry.

“We spend a lot of time just connecting with our members and trying to make sure we know what’s going on and what they need,” Tinsley says.

That sort of attention to what’s best for everyone working in the industry was, at first, a bit of a surprise when Tinsley came on board. “You hear, ‘Oh, team South Carolina. We all work together. Everybody knows each other in the world of industry and economic development,’ but it really is true,” she explains, adding that “I’ve been embraced in this role since I’ve been here, and the folks that have helped me out or wanted to partner with the Auto Council (are interested in) all around promoting our existing industry and attracting new industry. It’s like everybody truly is singing from the same page of the songbook.”

Developing Workforce “Making sure that we have a wellprepared workforce is just something that everybody truly is thinking about every day,” Tinsley says. “We got creative in the state and local governments and have worked together to create a manufacturing training program and kind of thinking outside the box to recognize we have the need for these additional workers, [so] we’re going to do everything in our power to meet it and to exceed expectations. And sometimes that takes creativity.”

Setting the stage for manufacturing and technology careers earlier and earlier in students’ lives is a way to help them realize automotive jobs are high paying and as strong career development pathways, she says.

“Staying at the forefront of workforce development is our biggest

challenge and making sure that we continue to meet and exceed expectations with that,” Tinsley says.

She references Future Makers, a partnership between the SCMA, the state and the departments of Education and Commerce as an example of what South Carolina is doing to stay ahead of the curve in training and recruiting the future of the industry. Beyond that, though, Tinsley wants to see SCAC on the frontlines of the state’s automotive industry efforts.

“We want to be a leader in sharing ideas and through leadership, making sure that people are having opportunities, whether through our events or our meetings,” Tinsley says.

“We like to stay engage and abreast of what is going on. We want to provide value to them, and we want to be at the forefront of what’s going on in the automotive community.

“We truly value our collaboration and partnerships with the Department of Commerce and the other groups within the state that we work with and that we’re also a collaborative organization. We’re very open, and we want to continue to collaborate and we really value all of our partners, as well.”

Never one to be idle, Tinsley’s a big believer in continuous education.

A graduate of Presbyterian College, she went on to earn two more degrees: a master’s degree in public administration and a master’s in business administration from the University of South Carolina.

It’s not surprising then that Tinsley loves school. “South Carolina used to have a law that if you’re, I think, 65 or older, you could get free tuition to any of the state universities. So, I always say if it’s still on the books when I turn 65, I’ll just get a doctorate.” n

I’ve been embraced in this role since I’ve been here, and the folks that have helped me out or wanted to partner with the Auto Council (are interested in) all around promoting our existing industry and attracting new industry. It’s like everybody truly is singing from the same page of the songbook.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 61

CAREER NOTES On Sept. 1, DHIVYA SURYADEVARA,39, will become chief financial officer for General Motors, succeeding CFO Chuck Stevens, who has been working at the auto company since before Suryadevara was born. CNBC reports that she is the first female CFO in the automaker’s 110year history and makes GM one of only two Fortune 500 companies that have both a female CEO and CFO. Previously, Suryadevara served as vice president of corporate finance at GM where she was responsible for corporate financial planning, investor relations and special projects. She has worked for GM 14 years.

During her tenure she has been credited with key roles in GM’s divestiture of its German affiliate Opel, the company’s acquisition of Cruise Automation, a selfdriving car startup, and its investment in Lyft, Uber main competition in the ride-hailing sector. Born in Chennai, India, Suryadevara was raised by a single mother after her father died. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degree in commerce at the University of Madras, then at 22, When she was 22, Suryadevara traveled to the U.S. for the first time to attend Harvard Business School, where she earned an MBA. GM, headquartered in Detroit, has operations in Texas, Tennessee and Kentucky among other places around the globe.

Huntsville, Alabama-based Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc. (MTMUS) recently announced two new members of its executive team.

Ikuo Sugiyama has been named senior vice president of Manufacturing and Huntsville native MARK BRAZEAL has become vice president of Administration. Sugiyama previously served as plant manager for Mazda Motor Corporation’s Hiroshima plant. In his new role, he will be responsible for manufacturing operations at MTMUS. Brazeal comes to MTMUS from Toyota Motor North America, where he served in general manager roles at the

company’s engine plants in Alabama and West Virginia. He will lead all administration operations for the new joint-venture. In March, MTMUS announced Masashi Aihara as president and Hironori Kagohashi as executive vice president.

MANJIT SINGH has been named the chief information officer and group vice president of information systems for Toyota Motor North America (TMNA). He will oversee strategy, development and operation of all information systems, solutions and technology, which means he will lead the information systems team, including cybersecurity, digital transformation and customer voice.

Singh will report directly to Zack Hicks, chief digital officer and executive vice president of digital transformation and mobility. Before joining Toyota, Singh was the senior vice president and chief information officer at The Clorox Company where he was responsible for leading the company’s strategic technology initiatives. Prior to his time at The Clorox Company, he led the industry solutions group at Box, Inc. where he was responsible for aligning strategies with key customers across different industries. Singh also has held CIO positions for Las Vegas Sands, Chiquita Brand International, as well as Gillette in Singapore. Early in his career, he worked at Procter & Gamble, pioneering the company’s digital marketing footprint and setting up early e-commerce capabilities.

In July, Toyota Financial Services (TFS) USA announced that VIPIN GUPTA has joined the company, assuming the role of group vice president and chief information officer. Gupta will lead the company’s information technology strategy, development and operations to deliver exceptional customer experiences. He will report to Mike Groff, president and

62 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

CEO of Toyota Financial Services USA. A University of Dallas graduate has been named president and managing director of GM Africa and Middle East operation. JOHN P. ROTH, who earned his master of business administration degree at the University of Dallas, had been serving as vice president, GM Canada Marketing, Sales and Service, until he started his new role June 1. Roth will be based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and responsible for growing the Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and ACDelco business throughout the region. Roth will report to Alan Batey, GM executive vice president, president of GM North America and head of GM Africa and Middle East operations and Global Chevrolet. Roth, 49, joined GM in 1991 and held a series of sales and marketing positions before becoming director of Sales Operations for Cadillac, HUMMER and Saab in 2008. He became Cadillac regional director in 2011 and was responsible for leading the field team supporting South Central Region dealers. He was named vice president of GM Canada Marketing, Sales and Service in 2013. Roth earned a bachelor’s degree from Albion College.

Effective Sept. 1, PHILIP CALHOUN has been named vice president, Manufacturing, Canton Vehicle Assembly Plant for Nissan in Mississippi. Calhoun has served as senior director, Manufacturing Operations, for the Canton Vehicle Assembly Plant since October 2017. He brings more than 25 years of broad experience in manufacturing and quality, including site management for assembly and powertrain plants with other automotive manufacturers. Calhoun succeeds Steve Marsh, who is returning to Nissan Manufacturing United Kingdom (NMUK) as vice president. Calhoun will report to Heath Holtz, senior vice president, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management and Purchasing, Nissan North America, Inc. n

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 63

REGIONAL REPORTS TAMA helps Tennessee automotive companies, especially suppliers, react to the challenges of the global automotive marketplace.

TAMA is a membership organization with a mission to strengthen and expand Tennessee’s automotive industry. TAMA’s diverse membership includes OEMs, Tier 1, 2, and 3 suppliers, government agencies, and professional service organizations that have expertise in the automotive industry. Members enjoy access to some of Tennessee’s top automotive executives, strong support from the state’s economic development team, and discounted fees to membership meetings and other TAMA events.

TAM A’ S ANN U A L S P ON S OR S

TAMA 2018 BOARD OF DIRECTORS President, Rick Youngblood, Nissan North America Vice President, Daniel Davidson, Calsonic Kansei North America, Inc. Treasurer, Jim Leyhew, Kasai North America, Inc. Dex Battista, Magna International Luca Bovalino, Magneti Marelli Ed Carter, C&S Plastics

Andre Gist, Manufacturers Industrial Group Victoria Hirschberg, TN Dept. of Economic & Community Development Barry Owens, Bridgestone Americas, Inc. Marius Sipos, YAPP USA Automotive Systems, Inc. Kim Williams, Tenneco

To join TAMA, visit www.tennauto.org.

For questions about membership, contact Ashley Frye 615-525-4533 email: ashley@tennauto.org 64 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 65

REGIONAL REPORTS The Georgia Automotive Manufacturers Association, Inc. (GAMA) is a non-profit trade association which passionately promotes the interests of Georgia’s automotive and ground transportation industry. GAMA is a community of businesses with common interests and goals which provides a highly interactive forum to help members achieve the following: • continual improvement in their businesses • higher levels of innovation, quality, and profitability

• professional success through unique educational opportunities • successful networking among customers and peers

5TH ANNUAL GOLF TOURNAMENT

O cto b e r 3 - 5

SouthernAutoCon.Com P RE SE NTE D BY

gama

GAMA’s primary focus this year is on hosting the Southern Automotive Conference (SAC) on October 3-5, 2018. The event is being held at the Cobb-Galleria Convention Centre in Atlanta, Georgia (see photo). The GAMA Teams are continuing to move full speed ahead to have this be a spectacular event, delivering extraordinary value for all who attend, exhibit, and/or sponsor.

Highlights include: The logo and theme for this year’s event “Forward Momentum” are intended to capture the growing importance and strength of the SAC to our region and the automotive industry worldwide.

The website for SAC 2018 is www.SouthernAutoCon. com. The website has been accepting registrations and signing up exhibitors at a good pace. The SAC sold out last year as to both attendee registrations and exhibitor spots. We recommend you sign up early, to avoid missing out.

Speakers announced so far include: • Raj Batra – President, Digital Factory Division, Siemens • Stuart Countess – Chief Administrative Officer, KIA/ KMMG • Governor Nathan Deal - Governor, State of Georgia • Linda Hasenfratz – CEO, Linamar Corporation • Dr. Hagen Radowski – President & CEO, MHP Americas – A Porsche Company • Gary Silberg – National Sector Lead Partner for the Automotive Industry, KPMG • Jonathan Smoke – Chief Economist, Cox Automotive • John Waraniak – Vice President, Vehicle Technology, SEMA

At l a n ta , GA • Davis Woodruff - President, Management Methods with many more to come.

PMT Publishing, with their experienced SAC Team including Sheila Wardy, Molly Lipski, and Walker Sorrell, is the Event Planner and Promoter for this year’s SAC. They are doing a fantastic job.

Sponsorships are very important to the success of events like this, and the GAMA Sponsorship Team consisting of David Eyes, Julio Gonzalez, Walter Griggs, Terry Seese, and Mike Stonecipher, are energized, organized, and are meeting regularly to help ensure the success of this event. GAMA is most grateful for their assistance.

GAMA welcomes your support in helping obtain Sponsors by spreading the word at your company or organization. Sheila Wardy is the Director of Sponsorships for the SAC, and is reachable at swardy@pmtpublishing. com, or by phone at 205-802-6363 x108.

This will be the 11th year for the SAC, and one of the reasons for its continuing success is the support of the other regional association executives – from AAMA, MAMA, TAMA, KAIA, SCAC, and SAWF. The invitation-only VIP Reception scheduled for Wednesday, October 3, 2018, is expected to feature buyers from nine OEMs and six Tier 1 suppliers, who will be there to meet prospective customers. Invitations are extended only to registered Sponsors and Exhibitors, so sign up now. Members of the Boards of our regional associations will also be in attendance.

This year’s event is expected to host several International Pavilions. This adds international resources and opportunities to the event, and builds on the success of the JETRO International Pavilion from 2017. GAMA welcomes any introductions you can make in this area.

For further information, please contact Rick Walker, GAMA President, at rwalker@GAMA-Georgia.org or 770-314-9040 66 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

MAMA’s mission is to promote the growth and development of the automotive industry.

The Mississippi Automotive Manufacturers Association was formed to provide a forum for interaction among automotive manufacturing companies in Mississippi. The organization serves its members by promoting the growth, development, and improvement of the automotive industry. The Mississippi Automotive Manufacturers Association (MAMA) is open to companies or plants engaged in the manufacturing of vehicles, suppliers and/or distributors of parts to equipment manufacturers and/or after-market distributors; and companies, organizations, or advisors that have demonstrated experience with manufacturing trends, techniques, or services to the automotive industry.

15 years, 4 million vehicles, and 6,500+ jobs. And counting!

Congratulations on your first 15 years! We look forward to the next!

Members of MAMA’s golf team at the Nissan/BankPlus Drive for Education on June 21st. This golf tournament raises money for grants that will support a variety of education initiatives designed to enhance the learning experience of area students.

To join MAMA, visit www.mamaonline.net.

For questions about membership, contact Caley Dawkins – 601.750.5666 or msautomanufacturers@gmail.com AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 67

REGIONAL REPORTS

Alabama Automotive Manufacturers Association

AAMA’S MISSION is to promote growth and continuous improvement of automotive manufacturing in Alabama.

ALAUTOINDUSTRY.ORG

GET MORE MILEAGE WITH AAMA MEMBERSHIP! AAMA HELPS YOU BE COMPETITIVE. Work with statewide partners who represent your interests to further job creation and develop a promanufacturing economy.

AAMA HELPS YOU CONNECT.

Get connected to the people, programs, information and resources that can help you improve your business and grow your team.

AAMA KEEPS YOU INFORMED.

AAMA delivers events, newsletters and training opportunities focused on the issues that have the greatest impact to Alabama’s automotive manufacturers and suppliers. Gain access to the biannual survey of the automotive industry in Alabama, the AAMA “members-only” website, and Southern Automotive Alliance magazine.

AAMA SAVES YOU MONEY.

AAMA’s efforts focus on eliminating unnecessary cost burdens while low cost training programs are offered to AAMA members through ATN, AIDT, Alabama Community Colleges and Universities. You can also request a plant assessment or training program within your facility.

AAMA GIVES BACK. AAMA awards

scholarships annually to students enrolled in automotive manufacturing programs at Alabama’s two-year colleges. Members can participate in the AAMA Supplier of the Year Award with our partner, the Business Council of Alabama (BCA).

AAMA LETS YOU ENGAGE.

AAMA’s Corporate Partners and Board Members are among Alabama’s most respected thought-leaders for our industry. Active AAMA members can work alongside these automotive icons to make a difference for our state and industry.

68 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

BENEFITS OF AAMA MEMBERSHIP INCLUDE: • Business networking opportunities • Leadership opportunities • Sharing of manufacturing best practices • Information on issues impacting the industry • Information on advances in technology and continuous improvement • Access to internet database of Alabama automotive-related companies • Listing on AAMA website • Members Directory • Promotional opportunities for company news • Free factory floor assessments (participating companies are eligible for AAMA Supplier of Year Award) • Member Discounts for training • Membership to AIAG • Membership to BCA • Invitation to annual conference • Sponsorship Opportunities Join AAMA today! Start now taking part in Alabama’s dynamic automotive manufacturing association. If you are interested in learning more about AAMA and how you can help advance Alabama’s automotive industry, please visit ALAutoIndustry.org.

Contact: Lynsey Delane | 256.824.6407 Ron Davis | 205.657.5101

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 69

I N D U S T R Y I N D I C AT O R S

Taxing the Automotive Industry

This tally of the amount of state income tax collected in the millions from automakers, suppliers and dealers in a given state reflects the fact that Texas collects no income tax and Tennessee collects no income tax on wages, according to The Motley Fool.

Source: Autoalliance.org, Center for Automotive Research “Assessment of Tax Revenue,” published January 2015

Southeast Auto Stocks Company/Security

Headquarters

S.E. U.S.

Ticker

Exchange

Closing Price 6/29/2018

Closing Price 6/30/2017

Stock Price Growth

BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke AG ADR)

Munchen, Germany

SC

BMWYY

OTC

30.175

31.16

-3.16i

Ford Motor Co.

Dearborn, Michigan

KY

F

NYSE

11.07

11.19

-1.07i

General Motors Co.

Detroit, Michigan

Ky., Tenn.

GM

NYSE

39.4

34.93

12.80h

Honda Motor Co. Ltd.

Minato, Tokyo, Japan

AL, S.C.

HMC

NYSE

29.27

27.39

6.86h

Hyundai Motor Co. Ltd.

Seoul, South Korea

Ala.

HYMLF

OTC

120

120

0.00

Kia Motors Corp.

Seoul, South Korea

Ga.

KIMTF

OTC

30.3

32.3

-6.19i

Mazda Motor Corp.

Hiroshima, Japan

Ala.

MZDAF

OTC

12.255

13.44

-8.82i

Mercedes-Benz (Daimler AG)

Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany

Ala., Ga., S.C.

DDAIF

OTC

64.2

72.51

-11.46i

Mitsubishi Motors Corp.

Minato, Tokyo, Japan

Ky.

MMTOF

OTC

7.9

6.52

21.17h

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.

Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan

Miss., Tenn.

NSANF

OTC

9.57

9.635

-0.67i

Porsche Automobile Pfd.

Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany

Ga.

POAHF

OTC

63.55

56.15

13.18h

Toyota Motor Corp. Ltd. Ord.

Toyota, Aichi, Japan

Ala., Ky., Miss.

TM

NYSE

128.81

105.02

22.65h

Volkswagen Ag Ord.

Wolfsburg, Germany

Tenn.

VLKAF

OTC

163

154.66

5.39h

Volvo AB ADR

Gothenburg, Sweden

S.C.

VLVLY

OTC

15.84

17.05

-7.10

70 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

BY T H E N U M B E R S

$388 43,000 MILLION TONS 200,000

Tire distribution joint venture created

by Goodyear and Bridgestone, to be headquartered in Atlanta. southernautocorridor.com

12 Number of Ole Miss students who have formed a campus chapter of the Collegiate Automotive Manufacturing Society. news.olemiss.edu

4 TIMES MORE Number of automotive workers in upstate South Carolina compared to the national average. autonews.com

Investment being made by Hyundai in its Montgomery, Ala. manufacturing plant. al.com

Anticipated capacity of Novelis’ new automotive aluminum sheet manufacturing facility in Guthrie, Ky. just-auto.com

CU-ICAR Advanced-technology research center at Clemson University which is home to the nation’s first graduate department of automotive engineering. autonews.com

1,000 Number of dealership technicians expected to move through BMW’s new training center near HartsfieldJackson Atlanta Airport each year. autonews.com

20

SECONDS Interval at which a new vehicle comes off the line in Tennessee. tennessean.com

$1.3

BILLION Anticipated investment by Braidy Industries in its Ashland, Ky. plant which will provide aluminum for the automotive and aerospace industries. southernautocorridor.com

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 71

INDUSTRY NEWS

Dreaming of Auto Traffic International partnership plans RO/RO facility at the Port of Mobile TEXT BY: JANE NICHOLES / PHOTOS BY: MIKE KITTRELL

A

planned $60 million roll-on/ roll-off facility in Mobile, Alabama represents a major diversification for the nation’s 10th largest seaport by volume. But James Lyons, director of the Alabama State Port Authority, says it’s too soon to project which automakers will use it.

“Nobody will really talk to you until you have the facility built, so nobody’s going to guarantee that they will ship through us until they can see what we’ve got and what we’ve got coming through here,” Lyons says.

Two of the big players in the RO/RO business, however, are optimistic enough to take on the project, called AutoMobile International Terminal.

Terminal Zarate of Argentina built the first vehicle terminal in Latin America in Buenos Aires in 1996. The

RO/RO facility handled 625,000 vehicles in 2017. The company is owned mostly

by Grupo Murchison, which Lyons describes as primarily “stevedores and terminal operators with multiple locations in Argentina and one in Uruguay.”

SAAM Puertos S.A., a subsidiary of the Chilean multinational company Sociedad Matriz SAAM S.A. operates 11 ports in Chile, Mexico, the United States, Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica.

“They will get a long-term concession to operate the facility,” Lyons says of the two companies. “This doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with trade between Chile and Argentina. Our trade could be with Asia, with Europe, with Mexico.”

Grants were crucial to the putting the deal together as well. The Port Authority was awarded a $12.7 million

72 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Transportation Infrastructure Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant and a $28.8 million grant from the Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council under the Restore Act resulting from the 2010 BP oil spill.

Construction on the new terminal should begin the fourth quarter and take about a year, so the terminal won’t be ready until 2019. Lyons says most of the property will be paved over for parking for hundreds of cars at a time.

How much Alabama auto manufacturing will benefit depends on who is exporting and which ships agree to use the Port of Mobile, he says. The cost benefit to the ships also depends on the number of vehicles per ship. “A ship is not going to come in here to pick up five automobiles.”

The chief RO/RO terminal competition is to the east.

“The two big auto ports that are in this region are in Brunswick, Georgia, and Jacksonville, Florida,” Lyon says.

“They both have very large auto handling facilities and they’ve been in business for a long time. They have ships going in and out of there and they have ships going to a lot of places that Mercedes ships to.”

On the other hand, the Alabama port is much closer to Mexico, where Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and Mazda have a combined 11 auto or auto parts manufacturing plants. Ship transport would need to be more cost effective than rail for manufacturers, Lyons says.

“I think that’s a good possibility for us.

If we do get ships going back and forth to Mexico I think there’s a very good chance that we can pick up automobile volumes and go back down to Mexico.”

Lyons predicts that AutoMobile will employ about 100 people but the number will go up when ships are in port. Longshoremen who already work the container ships will be in the RO/ RO pool, and they can make $75,000 to $100,000 annually. n Jane Nicholes and Mike Kittrell are freelance contributors to Business Alabama.

She is based in Daphne and he in Mobile.

OCTOBER 3 – 5 SOUTHERN AUTOMOTIVE CONFERENCE ATLA NTA, GA • 1800 attendees • 300+ exhibitors • many international pavilions • Innovation Zone • All-new Workforce Development Zone

ARE YOU IN Yet?

w w w. s o u t h e r n au t o c o n . c o m

PR ES EN T ED BY

PREMIER SPONSOR

gama IS A PROUD SPONSOR AND PLANNER OF SAC 2018

Index AAMA.................................... 4,20,21,22,24,25,68

Gill Pratt......................................................................... 19

NSF.................................................................... 11

ABL-Technic..................................................... 54

Grab.................................................................. 13

NXP................................................................... 13

AIAG.................................................................... 2

GreenpowerUSA.................................... 32,33,34

Omnex.............................................................. 79

Alejandra O’Connell-Dominech................................ 19

Greg Canfield...........................................................16,18

ONIN Group..................................................... 63

Akira Marumoto........................................................... 17

GroupMobile.................................................... 29

Panasonic......................................................... 13

Alabama Association of Community Colleges.

GulfQuest......................................................... 17

Panoz................................................................ 13

............................................................................ 9

Hago Automotive............................................ 12

Peter Sellers.................................................................. 15

ALPS Electric.................................................... 13

Hakan Samuelsson...................................................... 12

Polaris............................................................... 32

American Automobile Association............... 78

Hayley Barbour............................................... 47

Porsche........................................................ 10,14

American Center for Mobility........................ 19

Hall Motor Car Company........................... 76,78

Qualcomm....................................................... 13

Amy Moffatt........................................................20,21,22

Harley Davidson......................................... 10,17

Reality Analytics............................................. 36

Amy Tinsley..............................................................60,61

Herb Johnson................................................................ 18

REHAU.............................................................. 36

Apple................................................................ 13

Hodges................................................................ 5

REICH LLC......................................................... 26

Ashley Frye.........................................................20,21,22

Honda..................................................... 13,18,30

Richard W. Riley............................................................ 18

Audi.................................................................. 13

Hyundai........................................ 13,14,16,18,30

Richardson Molding................................... 56,57

Auto Alliance................................................... 70

J.D. Power....................................................14, 36

Rick Walker.................................. 20,21,22,24,25,26,27

Automotive Policy Council............................. 30

Jack Sisk.......................................................................... 39

Roger Garner................................................................ 14

Barber Motorsports............................................

JAMA................................................................. 16

Ron Davis............................................... 20,21,22, 36,39

............................. 10,34,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,76

JamisonMoneyFarmer.................................... 23

SAAM Puertos S.A............................................ 72

Batman............................................................. 15

Jean Marie Thrower................................................36,37

SAC2018......................... 10,21,22,24,25,26,27,73

BCA..................................................................... 4

John Kasich.................................................................... 15

Safekids.org..................................................... 38

BMW........................................ 12,13,16,19,30,52

KAIA................................................... 24,58,59,65

SAMA...................................................... 20,21,22

Boston Dynamics............................................ 13

Kasai North America...................................... 56

Samsung........................................................... 13

Braidy Industries............................................. 17

Keeton.............................................................. 23

SAWF....................................................... 20,24,45

Car Connectivity Consortium........................ 13

Kia............................................ 10,14,15,18,50,51

SCAC................................................... 24,60,61,69

Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems...... 77

KPMG................................................................ 25

SCMA............................................................ 60,61

Center for Automotive Research... 28,30,31,36

Land Rover....................................................... 18

Scott Becker.................................................................. 17

Center for Biological Diversity...................... 19

Lex Lemmers.....................................................20,21,22

Scott Clark..................................................................... 18

Charlie Brock................................................................ 17

Leadac.............................................................. 57

Siemens Industry Inc...................................... 25

Chevrolet.................................................... 15,18

LG...................................................................... 13

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.............................................. 76

Continental Automotive................................ 13

Maarten Scierhuis....................................................... 17

Steel Dynamics................................................ 13

Daimler........................................................ 16,36

Magna International...................................... 15

TAMA....................................... 20,21,22,24,25,64

Dave Tatman............................................................58,59

MAMA...................................... 20,21,22,24,25,67

Teijin Limited................................................... 13

David Mazouz............................................................... 15

Mazda................................................ 14,17,18,32

Terminal Zarate.............................................. 72

Delphi............................................................... 25

McAbee Construction..................................... 11

Tesla............................................................ 18,30

DENSO......................................................... 13,14

MEMA................................................................ 31

Texas A&M....................................................... 19

Donald Trump.........................................................12,28

Mercedes............................ 13,16,19,30,35,37,52

THINC College & Career Academy............ 50,51

Dong Ryeol Choi........................................................... 16

Meridian Magnesium Products of America. 52

Toyota........... 12,13,14,16, 17,18,30,31,32,59,80

DoSomething.org............................................ 15

Michelin........................................................... 17

UA Safestate...................................................... 6

Dynametal....................................................... 23

Michigan State University.............................. 19

Uber.................................................................. 12

EFC...................................................................... 7

MINACT............................................................ 75

Unipress........................................................... 15

Eyeris................................................................ 36

Morris South.................................................... 75

Utz..................................................................... 57

Fiat Chrysler............................................... 30,52

Morrison Industries........................................ 14

Venturi............................................................. 38

Ford.......................... 15,18,25,30,31,36,52,59, 78

Murano Corporation.................................. 52,53

Volkswagen....................................... 13,16,19,36

GAMA....................................... 20,21,22,24,24,66

NAOS................................................................. 26

Volvo................................................................. 12

Gemalto............................................................ 13

Nathan Deal.................................................................. 25

Worthwhile........................................................ 3

General Motors................. 13,15,30,36,52,58,59

New Flyer.................................................... 48,49

Xevo.................................................................. 16

George Barber.................... 10, 40,41,42,43,44,45,46,

Nissan...............................................12, 17,20, 56

ZF Company..................................................... 14

74 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 75

VINTAGE The Hall Cyclecar in its heyday. Images can be found in the upcoming book, Gildersleeve Waco’s Photographer by (photographer) Fred Gildersleeve edited by Geoff Hunt and John S. Wilson

The Tiny Car That Could The Hall Cyclecar of Waco rode with pride through a nearly forgotten era of automotive history TEXT BY: NICK PATTERSON PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE TEXAS COLLECTION, BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

U

nless you happen to visit a place like the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, which we feature in our Spotlight section in this issue, it’s probable that you’ve never heard of a cyclecar, let alone seen one.

At Barber there is a well-preserved specimen called the Wall Cycle Car, which, with its air cooled, single cylinder four-stroke engine, was built in

Birmingham, England by the Precision Co. With one wheel in the front and two in the back, it resembles a rickshaw or some other kind of relatively lightweight open carriage vehicle. Just one look at it and you can see it’s like a motorcycle towing a car. “The Wall was one of many cyclecars that flooded the market before and after the 1914 war,” as noted in the display card at Barber.

The card also notes that the cyclecar was “an economical alternative to the automobile,” and that Wall was financed by his brother-in-law, Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Not all cyclecars had such a storied pedigree, but there really were a lot of them, in the U.S. and Europe. And some of them looked much more like cars. Take as an example, the brand built by the Hall Cycle & Plating Company of Waco, Texas from 1914 to 1915. Hall had been known for bicycles

76 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

and Flanders motorcycles, but in the first year of the Great War, John B. Fisher, business partner of company president Lawrence Hall, designed and built the company car. Hall proceeded to drive it across the state on a test run.

Soon Hall Cycle & Plating Co. became the Hall Motor Car Company.

A blog posted on the website of Baylor University in Texas, which happens to have a nice original collection of photos of the Hall cyclecar (as you can see in this article) waxes almost poetic about the reasons Hall and others jumped into this segment of the automotive market: In the early days of automotive history, the irresistible desire to cruise and the immovable impediment of cost collided to bring in the era of the cyclecar. Cyclecars were lightweight vehicles, part motorcycle and part automobile.

So widespread was the cyclecar

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 77

VIN T AGE

that there were clubs, The Cyclecar magazine, and enthusiasts across the globe. It was a legitimate boom, according to the book The Light Car

by C.F. Caunter: The number of cyclecar manufacturers was less than a dozen in each of the UK and France in 1911, but by 1914, there were over 100 manufacturers in each country, as well as others in Germany, Austria and other European countries.

In fact, by 1914, the cyclecar was already involved in a little bit of scandal: the publication Automobile Topics on July 11 of that year reported that the American Automobile Association (yes, AAA) had blacklisted the Michigan Fair Grounds Track near Detroit, “for running cyclecar races without the ‘Three A’s’ sanction.” That same issue reported that, “Texas is to have a cyclecar factory within a few weeks — if the plans of the Hall Cyclecar Mfg. Co do not go awry.”

The Hall cyclecar, a chain-drive vehicle, only burned 2.5 gallons of gas in a trip of 104 miles from Waco to Dallas, according to Wikipedia, quoting the Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. Power-wise, compared to the 4 horsepower Wall cyclecar built in 1912, the Hall was a beast: 18 horses ran under that hood. A two-seater, the Hall

company intended to sell it, as noted on the Baylor website, for just $400.

“From all parts of the country came the announcements that new cars were being built and factories were being equipped for quantity production,” notes a book called Carette: America’s First Carette and Cyclecar, Volume 2.

The website theoldmotor.com describes the Hall favorably: “A rather complete appearing and well thought out design, it could be converted into a light delivery van by removing the rear seat, an unusual feature for vehicles of this type.”

After a promising beginning, the Hall Motor Car Company eventually ran out of gas. The Hall cyclecar ceased production in 1915.

As a trend, the cyclecar lasted from about 1910 to the late 1920s. They were not known for their workmanship.

“Cyclecars were characterized by their use of basic materials and sometimes fragile engineering and were largely contrived to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the car,” Wikipedia notes. Bill Vance, in his book Reflections on Automotive History, is less charitable in explaining why the cyclecar craze didn’t last: There were several reasons for their

Cyclecars were characterized by their use of basic materials and sometimes fragile engineering and were largely contrived to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the car. —Wikipedia 78 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

demise. The relatively easy entry into the business resulted in many primitive, under-designed machines. Their inherent flimsiness, and the extremely poor roads of the day, soon reduced most to little more than a pile of parts.

Engine failure was common, and the lack of a generator or magneto limited the travelling range of many.

Of course, that cyclecars were known to be inexpensive was part of the appeal; a 1914 advertisement for the LaVigne Cyclecar, for instance, wasted no words, calling it “The car you can afford to own.”

But as larger more powerful cars, like the Ford Model T, became cheaper to produce and sell, it became too much of a challenge for companies like Hall to keep going with the cyclecar.

“By the early 1920s, the days of the cyclecar were numbered. The cyclecar boom was over. The majority of cyclecar manufacturers closed down,” Wikipedia notes.

Apparently, though, the cyclecar holds enough appeal to this day that people still build them. Pinterest, for example, features a number of cyclecar plans and detailed schematics, with images showing old people, kids and even dogs sitting behind the wheel of different versions of cyclecars.

Today, a century or so after the cyclecar boom went bust, their simple designs, light weight and the romance and fun of building a little car by hand still get some people’s motors running. n

80 | Southern Automotive Alliance AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018