Europe’s leading car manufacturers launch an open Innovation Challenge to reduce emissions
Europe’s key car manufacturers, including Daimler, Volvo, Opel, Toyota, Volkswagen, CRF – the Research Center of FCA; suppliers (Thyssenkrupp, Novelis, Batz, Benteler) and knowledge partners (Swerea, Inspire, Fraunhofer LBF, RWTH-IKA, KIT-IPEK, University of Florence, Bax & Company, Ricardo) announced the ALLIANCE Open Innovation Lightweight Challenge. The challenge aims to reduce carbon emissions, by finding innovative and affordable solutions to lightweight cars.
The ALLIANCE partners are inviting innovators to participate in this competition and present their lightweighting solutions in two categories: Materials, and Manufacturing.
The challenge is now open for registration and teams will have until 15 January 2018 to submit their innovative lightweight solutions.
Participants will get technical support throughout the competition period and will have the opportunity to pre-assess the feasibility of their technology in a virtual vehicle model used in the ALLIANCE project.
A jury of industry professionals will judge the solutions on three criteria: technology quality, vehicle applicability, and complementarity with ALLIANCE.
The winners will get the chance to present their results in a dedicated presentation at the Aachen Body Engineering Days 2018 (18-20th September 2018), and have the opportunity to bring their technologies to a board formed by the six ALLIANCE OEM’s (Daimler, Volvo, Opel, Toyota, Volkswagen, CRF – the Research Center of FCA).
“ALLIANCE is addressing weight reduction in an holistic way. That means we need to work together to achieve the environmental targets. In this context, the ALLIANCE Lightweight Open Innovation Challenge truly meets these needs.”
Ahmet Dogan, Toyota Motor Europe Bax & Company, who are overseeing the challenge said, " It's a great opportunity for Europe's innovators to work with some of the biggest car manufacturers in the world."
All of the submitted technologies will be included in all dissemination activities of the ALLIANCE project and presented to an extensive technical group of potential customers.