Li'l old Moses Lake had a cameo in this morning's Wall Street Journal, in a column reviewing the new all-electric BMW i3 sports car. Here's an excerpt which provides a bit of insight into the world of carbon-fiber manufacture:
The i3's enveloping body shell emerges rather miraculously from a highly automated process in a matter of hours, not days, with minimal hand finishing. BMW has invested heavily in this technology, joining with the U.S. firm SGL Group for a thread manufacturing facility in Moses Lake, Wash. Thread cost, apparently, is a key driver and BMW researchers have been saying since the Frankfurt auto show in 2011 that carbon-fiber used for aerospace was over-engineered for automotive applications and needlessly expensive.
The promise is—setting aside for the moment, the profitability—that one day many kinds of cars could be made with these fuel-saving composites, which would move all sorts of needles in the right direction. In fact, the LifeDrive architecture isn't a new idea. GM spit-balled a fuel-cell concept car with a skateboard chassis in 2000. The positives of such a layout probably occur to every automotive engineer at some point. But BMW got there first. I predict that in the timelines of technological history, the i3 will prove to be a significant event.
For the full article, click here.
SGL recently began construction on a $100 million expansion of its Moses Lake facility, adding two new production lines and doubling the plant's overall production capability.
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