"Automobile manufacturers and suppliers expect an increased reliance on technology to enhance design and manufacturing efficiency," write David E. Cole, director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the U-M Transportation Research Institute, and Gerald F. Londal, a retired General Motors Corp. engineering manager. "Organizations that effectively develop and implement this rapidly changing technology to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction will certainly have a competitive advantage."
Their report on future product technology is part of the eighth annual U-M Delphi Forecast and Analysis of the North American Automotive Industry, which polls more than 300 automotive experts on trends in technology, materials and marketing through 2005.
According to the forecast, standards for Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) are projected to increase to 32 miles per gallon (16 percent) for passenger cars and to 25 mpg (24 percent) for light trucks and vans in the next decade.
Despite a projected rise in the cost of regular unleaded gasoline to $1.40 per gallon by 2005, the researchers say that gasoline is expected to continue to be the dominant fuel in the next decade. Electric vehicles, for example, are predicted to make up only 2 percent of passenger cars by 2005 and limited use of alternate energy sources is forecast for cars and light trucks by that time.
The forecast also predicts that traditional domestic manufacturers will source an increasing percentage of parts, components and subassemblies from outside North America, with 70 percent still expected to be sourced from the United States, Canada and Mexico in the next decade. The Mexican component and subassembly sourcing should expand from 10 percent today to 20 percent by 2005, however.
. . . March 1996