Not the Delorean revisited: An assessment of the competitive position of a stainless steel body-in-white

摘要

Autokinetics is a Rochester Hills MI design firm working with Armco, a supplier of stainless steel. Together, they have developed an architecture that replaces the traditional stamped and spot-welded steel unibody with a novel stainless steel spaceframe architecture. Fabrication, - Rollformings - Thin wall castings - Progressive die stampings - Plastic support and exterior panels; Assembly - Spot, laser, and MIG welding. Relative to conventional steel unibodies, the Autokinetics spaceframe architecture offers a number of projected advantages. Substantial mass reduction; Increased safety; Improved ride and NVH; More flexible packaging; Lower lifecycle impact; Potential for paint shop elimination. The obvious question that arises, and the one that this paper will answer, is: How does the Autokinetics spaceframe architecture compete on cost?