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Boney makes two other points that are worth keeping in mind regarding aluminum's sudden rise to fame: 1. In his view, it's been 40 years in coming. Speaking of the F-150, he says, "It's a step. A big step. But it's on a path we've been on for 40 years." 2. "We thought we were going to be there in 1996. The aluminum industry thought that that was going to be our big year." Boney explains of the frst that there has been a slow, steady, incremental growth of aluminum components through the years, primarily closure panels. Year after year, more aluminum parts. As for the second, there was intensive attention paid to aluminum back then; Ford had developed an aluminum-intensive Sable as a test-bed that seemed as though it might have had promise for production. "We've been a bridesmaid many, many times," Boney says. Audi has done extensive work with aluminum. And Jaguar—now Jaguar Land Rover—which was once owned by Ford, has made the use of aluminum a mainstay. One of the consequences of premium vehicle manufacturers using aluminum is that it is probably considered to be a material that lends itself to low- volume use. But Todd Summe, Global Technology Director, Automotive, Novelis, points out that the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models, which are aluminum-intensive vehicles, have a production volume of some 150,000 units per year. "It's not F-150 volume," he says, "but not the 20,000 units that people tend to think about for an aluminum-intensive vehicle." There are some other aspects of aluminum that may be commonly accepted but not necessarily accurate. For example, consider the notion that this means that the body shop—which is steel-oriented—is going to be torn up. Boney says that's not so. You have robots that are handling steel panels with end efectors that use magnets: replace the magnets with suction cups to handle the nonferrous materials. There's no need to replace the robots. You have other robots that are doing spot welding. They can be redeployed for riveting. Summe adds that 25 years ago, when he got into the feld, it cost about 30% more for an aluminum stamping die than one for steel "because there was not a large body of knowledge." Now, he points out that Dr. Mark White, chief engineer, Body Complete Business Unit, Jaguar Land Rover, pegs the delta at about 5%. When I ask White about the throughput of a plant producing aluminum cars compared with steel, he said that the build in their facilities for aluminum- intensive vehicles is "as quick or quicker." He admits that this took a lot of work, that before p Although there are signifcant advances being made in aluminum—in terms of capacity as well alloys and joining methods—for automotive use—in large part because according to the Ducker Worldwide ( ducker.com ) 2015 North American Vehicle Aluminum Content Study, "Globally, light vehicle aluminum content will approach 35 billion pounds by 2025 making light vehicles the most important global market for aluminum"—Dr. Mark White of Jaguar Land Rover notes that they've been building cars with aluminum since 1922. Shown here is the body-in-white for the forthcoming Jaguar XE, an aluminum-intensive midsize premium sports sedan. u Although the BMW i3 is widely touted for its use of carbon fber reinforced plastics, there is something else to keep in mind. According to BMW, the architecture for the vehicle is called "LifeDrive." There are two subsets within that: Life Module and Drive Module. The Life Module is the cabin. That's where there are the composites. However, the Drive Module, which includes the suspension, crash components, battery pack, and motor, is 100% aluminum. AD&P; > October 2014 > FEATURE > Aluminum: An Overnight Sensation Decades in the Making > Gary S. Vasilash > gsv@autofeldguide.com 22