48 AUTOMOTIVE
Paving a road fit for EVs Times of great change amplify the need for communication and collaboration. The automotive industry is in the midst of a great transition to the next generation of propulsion systems. The demand for electric and sustainable vehicles is growing rapidly as consumers become more conscious of their effect on the environment. One group working to meet these
challenges head on is the Aluminum Transportation Group (ATG). The ATG aims to provide the greater automotive industry with credible research that quantifies the increasingly beneficial value aluminium offers in sustainability, performance and safety. The resources the ATG offers represent the aluminium industry’s unwavering commitment to helping automakers design the most
advanced vehicles ever imagined. And the Roadmap for Automotive Aluminium is the detailed plan of action on how to drive innovation in the increasingly electrified automotive industry. Mike Keown* spoke to Zahra Awan** on the latest from the ATG following their participation at the Greener Aluminium Online Summit which took place on the 24th May 2022.
COULD YOU PAINT A PICTURE OF THE ATG? The ATG is a committee or subsection of the Aluminum Association. It is made up of the major players in the aluminium industry. We aim to represent the entire value chain involved in the transportation industry; committee members include: Constellium, Novelis, Commonwealth, Hydro, Kaiser, Rio Tinto and Real Alloy Currently 90% of the market is represented by secondary recycling, alloys and rolling, and we are working to grow our connections in the extrusion market. WHAT INSPIRED THE FORMATION OF THE ATG? The ATG has been around for decades, but the inspiration comes from listening to our automotive customers. They agreed that it would be better for them to work with us as a collective, as an industry. Chuck Johnson, The Aluminum Association CEO recently said, “the greatest power an association has is to convene as an industry.” So, the Aluminum Transportation Group brings all of the members–who otherwise compete fiercely with each other in the marketplace–together and aligns them in pre-competitive work that unifies our industry to best serve our automotive customers with industry-level solutions.
WHAT IS THE ROADMAP FOR THE ATG? The 2022 Auto Aluminium Roadmap is a unified blueprint that lays a foundation for the industry to grow and diversify within the automotive market. It is the conduit through which communication between all automotive aluminium stakeholders can communicate to achieve the industry’s goal of delivering consumers the most efficient, safe and fun to drive vehicles ever made. The Roadmap is a message to the industry saying, hey, we’ve heard you and here’s how we’re planning to work together moving forward. HOW ARE THE END USERS OF ALUMINIUM – THE AUTOMAKERS – REACTING TO THIS ROADMAP? With enthusiasm–this is something they asked of us, so we pursued it together. They were part of this project from the beginning. In March 2021 we gathered automakers, aluminium producers and other key stakeholders for a 3-day brainstorming session that formed the foundation for this Roadmap. We set both short-and long-term goals to really help us drive the future of aluminium, focusing on technology to enable this future. We will continue to work on the strategy because this is not just a publish once and done type of initiative. This is a living, breathing document that we will check and adjust along the way. It will not become a stale document. It will forever be revisited and repurposed as a guide for all ATG activity.
*ATG Chair **Editorial Assistant, Aluminium International Today July/August 2022
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Aluminium International Today
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