European Car Manufacturers Research Articles

RENEWABLE HORIZONS: INVESTIGATING FEASIBILITY IN CONSUMPTION TRENDS

The European Union's ambitious target to achieve zero emissions from passenger cars by 2035 has sparked significant strategic overhauls among European car manufacturers, pushing them towards a 100% electric vehicle fleet. Concurrently, a forthcoming heating law, slated to take effect from 2024 initially in Germany, aims to drastically curtail the installation of gas and oil heating systems in favour of heat exchangers. These legislative shifts are already straining the power grid, necessitating a substantial expansion of renewable energy capacity. Projections indicate an ongoing surge in energy demand, underscoring the imperative of a global transition away from fossil fuels. However, this endeavour poses formidable challenges for nations worldwide. This study delves into the current state of renewable energy and its projected evolution, stressing the imperative of significantly boosting renewable energy deployment to achieve sustainable electrification of passenger vehicles globally. It highlights the need to triple the share of renewable energy sources, quadruple efforts across all transportation sectors, and increase the overall transition away from fossil fuels fifteenfold. While conventional renewables such as solar, wind, hydro, and biofuels remain integral, emerging technologies like nuclear fusion offer promising avenues. Nonetheless, attaining complete independence from fossil fuels may prove elusive, considering non-energy applications of crude oil and other fossil resources. The study also assesses potential ecological ramifications and balances the environmental impacts of these energy transitions.

The impact of the stringency of environmental policy on a firm's financial performance: an empirical study of European automobile manufacturers

PurposeThe authors investigate the impact of the stringency of environmental policy on the financial performance of European automobile manufacturers. This paper contributes to the debate about the impact of environmental policy on a firm's competitive performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use cross-country sector-level panel data for 71 firms from 18 European countries from 2010 to 2019. The authors apply a fixed-effect model and then, to address the endogeneity issues, the authors use the generalized method of moments (GMM) model. To further examine the validity of the results, the authors use a data-mining modeling approach as a robustness test.FindingsBy considering the dynamic impact of environmental policy and overcoming the endogeneity issues, the results show that the impact of the stringency of environmental policy on a firm's financial performance depends on the time horizon: the stringency of environmental policy has a short-term negative impact but a long-term positive impact on a firm's financial performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors limited the study to the auto industry in Europe. In addition, future research could consider the impact of environmental policy on other financial performance indicators such as Return on Sales or Return on Equity. Also, it would be interesting to conduct a similar study in the United States or China using a firm-level data set to examine the robustness of the results.Practical implicationsStringency of environmental policy improves a firm's financial performance in the long term. It is essential for firms and managers to consider the dynamic impacts of environmental policy on their financial performance and adopt a long-term perspective when evaluating the costs and benefits of complying with environmental regulations. The findings help management develop a long-term vision for investment and budget allocation. The results support management's view for strategic decision-making against the common budget argument and challenges for stockholders when it comes to adopting new technologies and planning long-term investment.Social implicationsIt is crucial for firms to recognize the broader societal benefits that come with environmental policy. Firms must not only focus on their financial performance but also on their social responsibility to protect the environment and contribute to the greater good. Therefore, firms must take a long-term perspective and recognize the broader societal benefits of environmental policy in order to make informed decisions that support both their financial success and their social responsibility.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature by helping to explain the inconsistent results of studies about the impact of environmental policy on a firm's competitiveness. Using a firm's financial performance as one of the main metrics for competitiveness, this study takes into account both endogeneity and contemporaneity in evaluating the impact of the stringency of environmental policy on a firm's financial performance.

Electrical Parameters as Diagnostics of Fresh Engine Oil Condition-Correlation with Test Voltage Frequency.

The aim of this study was to assess whether electrical parameters (capacitance and conductivity) of fresh engine oils-tested over a wide range of measurement voltage frequencies-can be used for oil quality assessment and its identification, based on physicochemical properties. The study encompassed 41 commercial engine oils with different quality ratings (American Petroleum Institute (API) and European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA)). As part of the study, the oils were tested for their total base number (TBN) and total acid number (TAN), as well as their electrical parameters, including impedance magnitude, phase shift angle, conductance, susceptance, capacitance and quality factor. Next, the results for all of the samples were examined for correlations between the mean electrical parameters and the test voltage frequency. A statistical analysis (k-means and agglomerative hierarchical clustering) was applied to group oils with similar readings, drawing on the values for all electrical parameters to produce group oils with the highest similarity to each other into clusters. The results show that the electrical-based diagnostics of fresh engine oils can serve as a highly selective method for identifying oil quality, offering much higher resolution than assessments based on the TBN or the TAN. This is further supported by the cluster analysis, with five clusters generated for electrical parameters of the oils, compared to only three generated for TAN- and TBN-based measurements. Out of all the tested electrical parameters, capacitance, impedance magnitude and quality factor were found to be the most promising for diagnostic purposes. The value of electrical parameters of fresh engine oils is mostly dependent on the test voltage frequency (with the exception of capacitance). The correlations identified in the course of the study can be used to select for those frequency ranges that offer the highest diagnostic utility.

Anomaly detection for industrial quality assurance: A comparative evaluation of unsupervised deep learning models

Across many industries, visual quality assurance has transitioned from a manual, labor-intensive, and error-prone task to a fully automated and precise assessment of industrial quality. This transition has been made possible due to advances in machine learning in general, and supervised learning in particular. However, the majority of supervised learning approaches only allow to identify pre-defined categories, such as certain error types on manufactured objects. New, unseen error types are unlikely to be detected by supervised models. As a remedy, this work studies unsupervised models based on deep neural networks which are not limited to a fixed set of categories but can generally assess the overall quality of objects. More specifically, we use a quality inspection case from a European car manufacturer and assess the detection performance of three unsupervised models (i.e., Skip-GANomaly, PaDiM, PatchCore). Based on an in-depth evaluation study, we demonstrate that reliable results can be achieved with fully unsupervised approaches that are even competitive with those of a supervised counterpart.

Analysing GRI reports for the disclosure of SDG contribution in European car manufacturers

Social pressure has triggered companies to report their sustainable results. However, no clear methodology is available to easily report sustainable indicators directly related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).This paper aims at analysing sustainability reports from automotive companies with manufacturing facilities in Europe that issued sustainability disclosures in accordance with the Global Report Initiative framework.This paper maps a classification of the main sustainability metrics and their frequency amongst the leading car manufacturers reports. The main sustainable indicators usually disclosed are identified analysing the aspects covered. Consequently, the main Sustainability Drivers Key Performance Indicators (SDKPIs) for the car manufacturer sector are highlighted, including the relationship between them and the SDGs is shown. On the other hand, the main gaps in reporting these SDKPIs are indicated by considering the coverage of goals and targets, as well as the reporting frequency of current GRI metrics.This work is an early relevant work to provide a framework for analytics in the SDGs/GRI linkage and what flows from it. Moreover, it makes easier to compare the information disclosed. This development would help in harmonizing the language used and would also contribute to foster transparency, and hence to make sustainability efforts more visible.

Project portfolio planning under CO2 fleet emission restrictions in the automotive industry

AbstractThis paper aims to identify financially and environmentally promising project portfolio decisions under CO2 fleet emission restrictions in the automotive industry. These decisions are particularly difficult due to uncertain demand, ever‐stricter CO2 fleet emission thresholds, and an increasing number of alternative powertrain technologies that can be integrated into different vehicle projects with high project‐specific investments and long product life cycles. We develop a mixed‐integer linear programming model that maximizes the net present value of car manufacturers’ project portfolios, so‐called cycle plans, by selecting specific vehicle projects and by determining the respective production quantities to comply with the given thresholds for the CO2 fleet emissions. By applying the model to an illustrative European car manufacturer, promising cycle plan decisions are determined and analyzed across six market demand scenarios. The results reveal that compliance with the European emission thresholds until 2035 is generally possible if electric vehicle demand gains momentum, but threshold exceedance and corresponding penalty payments can be financially advantageous in some situations. Long‐term compliance with CO2 regulation and financial success is supported by the fast market introduction of battery electric vehicles and the preparation of fuel cell electric vehicles for a later market introduction in large‐sized vehicles.

Water Availability Forecasting Using Univariate and Multivariate Prophet Time Series Model for ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers Association)

Time series is one of method to forecasting the data. The ACEA company has competition with opened the data in the Water Availability and uses the data to forecast. The dataset namely, Aquifers-Petrignano in Italy in water resources field has five parameters e.g. rainfall, temperature, depth to groundwater, drainage volume, and river hydrometry. In our research will be forecast the depth to groundwater data using univariate and multivariate approach of time series using Prophet Method. Prophet method is one of library which develop by Facebook team. We also use the other approach to making the data clean, or the data ready to forecast. We use handle missing data, transforming, differencing, decomposition time series, determine lag, stationary approach, and Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF). The all approach will be uses to make sure that the data not appearing the problem while we tried to forecast. In the other describe, we already get the results using univariate and multivariate Prophet method. The multivariate approach has presented the value of MAE 0.82 and RMSE 0.99, it’s better than while we forecast using univariate Prophet.

Interrelation between the climate-related sustainability and the financial reporting disclosures of the European automotive industry

The financial reports of the automotive companies' are measured in a standardized manner; therefore, they are transparent and comparable to each other, but this is not valid for the sustainability reports and it is not possible to compare their sustainability performances. Standard-setting organizations are currently searching for better reporting procedures. This study aims to investigate the connection between sustainability and financial reports for the most dominant European car manufacturers. It reviews the traceability of the sustainability elements back to the financial statements, which helps transparency, comparability, and impact measurement of the disclosed items and issues. This investigation allowed us to additionally review whether these companies are targeting to disclose the most harmful pollution impacts, or only focus to disclose the required obligatory items. Given the financial and sustainability reports magnitude manual testing would not provide complete and proper coverage, therefore we utilized an automated and AI-assisted content analysis with natural language processing. In this new review method, the sustainable elements of the textual reports were automatically retrieved following the 5-stage model of Landrum & Ohsowski (2018). The study highlights the lack of true sustainability information content of reports and the potential discrepancies and connections between the financial and the sustainability reports. Findings concluded that sustainability disclosures at the reviewed companies from several aspects could be improved and quantified, traced back to the financial disclosures, and to be comparable to each other if they apply a similar review method.Graphic abstract

Inbound and outbound flow integration for cross-docking operations

We consider the optimization of the cross-docking operations at three INtermodal LOgistics Platforms (INLOPs) of a large European car manufacturer (ECM). The planning horizon is a week and the time bucket is a day. An inbound flow of products is gradually received over the week by truck from inland suppliers, and has to be loaded into containers which are then shipped to offshore production plants. The full content of a container must be available at the INLOP to enable its loading operations to start, hence temporary storage is needed. The objective is to minimize an inventory penalty, computed as the largest daily volume of temporary product storage observed over the planning horizon. The current practice at ECM is to first optimize the content of the inbound trucks and of the outbound containers independently, and then determine the loading day of each container to be shipped based on these fixed contents. We propose to integrate, within the same optimization framework, the decisions on both truck and container contents, which involve complex loading constraints related to the dimensions and weights of the products, with those on the scheduling of container loading. We model the resulting problem as a mixed integer linear program, and we develop a decomposition scheme for it, as well as a fix-and-optimize matheuristic. We perform extensive computational experiments on real instances provided by ECM. Results show that a combination of these two matheuristics is able to generate solutions that reduce the average inventory penalty by 40%.

Prioritizing the Chicken or Egg? Electric Vehicle Purchase and Charging Infrastructure Subsidies in Germany

To meet current targets for greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, emissions, especially those originating from the road transport sector, need to be reduced. Plans are to achieve this goal by substituting fossil fuel vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs). This article first discusses conceptually the impact of an increasing share of EVs on the electricity grid and suitable locations for charging stations with examples from a Case Study in Lower Bavaria. Secondly, the impact of purchase subsidies on EV purchases in Germany, a high-income country characterized by an important automotive industry and an increasing share of private vehicles is examined. To achieve this, yearly information on EV purchases were analyzed by applying the Synthetic Control Method. Combining data from different sources including the European Alternative Fuels Observatory, Eurostat, and the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, an overall picture was developed. Results indicate a difference between private, semi-public, and public charging infrastructures. Its spatial distribution does not correspond to a specific development strategy. Moreover, EV subsidies have a limited effect in Germany when controlling for market size. Limiting the discussion to a trade-off between subsidizing infrastructures or EV purchases obviates the multidimensionality of the problem as neither of them may be sufficient to accelerate the transition per se. Furthermore, if electricity provided for EVs comes mainly from fossil carriers, the changes in the road transport sector will not yield the expected emission reductions. The transition towards renewables is directly intertwined with the effects of EVs on emission reductions in the road transport sector.

Achieving Personal Ambidexterity in Practice

In times where technological change develops exponentially, companies are under pressure to constantly reinvent themselves. However, it is still an open question how companies can explore new opportunities for innovation while at the same time exploiting their existing knowledge. Much research has focused on structural and sequential ambidexterity, meaning that exploration and exploitation are separated through structures or time. Little research, however, has been put on personal ambidexterity and how paradoxical demands can be handled by employees within their daily work environment. Therefore, we analyze how employees of a large European car manufacturer with distinct roles execute a highly explorative task – evaluating tournament-based crowdsourcing solutions. For this, we make use of participant observation, archival data, and qualitative interviews. The results indicate that certain cultural elements as well as leader behaviors form role perceptions of employees. If role perceptions are exploitative, employees feel negative emotions due to cognitive dissonance which decrease exploration quality. Nevertheless, we identified some individuals that were able to cope with cognitive dissonance through certain personality traits, competencies, support, and an adaptation of the task scope. This provides several implications for the implementation of personal ambidexterity within companies.

Between closure and Industry 4.0: strategies of Japanese automotive manufacturers in Central and Eastern Europe in reaction to labour market changes

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has been an important production base for the international automotive industry, attracting foreign direct investments from European, American, and Japanese car manufacturers. However, after almost three decades of transformation, local changes such as rapidly rising wages and decreasing unemployment have forced investors to re-consider their original plans. This article identifies a range of strategies employed by Japanese automakers in order to cope with the challenges of labour markets in CEE. In our study, we learn that investments that have primarily been motivated by lowering costs were forced to close down, while the remaining ones developed a variety of strategies for securing, retaining, and upskilling of employees. The discussion section in this paper focuses on the future perspective of the industry in the region, considering the high-road and low-road labour models as well as the influence of the Industry 4.0.

Integrating workload smoothing and inventory reduction in three intermodal logistics platforms of a European car manufacturer

We consider the optimization of container loading at three intermodal logistics platforms (ILP) of a large European car manufacturer (ECM). The decisions focus both on the loading day of each container and on its filling with the products in inventory, which are gradually received over the week from inland suppliers. The objective is either to reduce the largest inventory level needed in the ILP, or to smooth the weekly workload. We develop a solution methodology that allows the handling of complex loading constraints related to dimensions and weight of the products. We model the problem as a mixed integer linear program and we develop a decomposition heuristic to solve it. We perform extensive computation tests on real instances provided by ECM. Compared with current industrial practices, our solutions yield an average improvement of 46.8% for the inventory reduction and of 25.8% for the smoothing of the workload. Our results highlight the benefit of jointly optimizing container loading and operations scheduling.

Intelligent materials in modern production – Current trends for thermal shape memory alloys

Abstract Thermal shape memory alloys show extraordinary material properties and can be used as actuators, dampers and sensors. Since their discovery in the middle of the last century they have been investigated and further developed. The majority of the industrial applications with the highest material sales can still be found in the medical industry, where they are used due to their superelastic and thermal shape memory effect, e.g. as stents or as guidewires and tools in the minimal invasive surgery. Particularly in recent years, more and more applications have been developed for other industrial fields, e.g. for the household goods, civil engineering and automotive sector. In this context it is worth mentioning that for the latter sector, million seller series applications have found their way into some European automobile manufacturers. The German VDI guideline for shape memory alloys introduced in 2017 will give the material a further boost in application. Last but not least the new production technologies of additive manufacturing with metal laser sintering plants open up additional applications for these multifunctional materials. This paper gives an overview of the extraordinary material properties of shape memory components, shows examples of different applications and discusses European trends against the background of the most recent standard and new production technologies.

Solving the Wire-Harness Design Problem at a European car manufacturer

In many industries, increasing competition and high customer expectations compel companies to widen their product offering. Car manufacturers face the same issue and tend to produce an increasingly large variety of models, with more and more electrical options. This leads to the design of a huge number of different electrical wire harnesses, but the use of component commonality can help reduce this number. This work, initiated in collaboration with a major European car manufacturer, provides a new mathematical formulation of the problem and several solution methods. Due to its size, the problem cannot be solved to optimality in reasonable time by exact methods. Hence, we introduce greedy heuristics, a descent method and a variable neighborhood search metaheuristic that provide high quality solutions in reasonable computing time. Results show that the use of these solution methods yields important cost savings with respect to the current practice of the company.

Renew or cancel? Drivers of customer renewal decisions for IT-based service contracts

Manufacturers increasingly integrate information and communication technologies into their products so that they can provide IT-based services. Organizations that formerly concentrated on transactional sales thus confront a new challenge associated with managing service usage—retention and extracting value from investments in smart technology. This study combines a marketing and an information systems perspective in a field study conducted jointly with a large European car manufacturer. Understanding the renewal decision for IT-based service contracts requires knowledge from both disciplines. The paper shows that combining behavioral predictor variables stemming from marketing research and technology-related perceptual variables stemming from technology acceptance research increases the explanatory power and prediction accuracy of forecasting models for customer renewal decisions. Specifically, the authors show that perceptions of usefulness become more important the longer customers use IT-based services and the more services they use within the service contract.

Strategies and Factors Affecting China’s Auto Industry Investment in Iran After Lifting the Sanctions

In recent years, the presence of Chinese vehicles in the streets of Iran has become more remarkable. Although, the Chinese automotive products are more elegant than Iranian ones, their quality is still criticized by Iranian consumers. However, due to the absence of major automobile manufacturers in past, the Chinese have used the opportunity of Iran’s sanctions and have taken the Iranian market. After lifting the economic sanctions on Iran, the government first attempted to negotiate with European automobile manufacturers to invest and import products to Iran. This is a difficult situation for Chinese automotive manufacturing companies which considered Iran as one of the largest automobile markets. Now, the questions are: what will be the situation of Chinese automotive manufacturing companies in Iran after lifting the sanctions? What factors will guarantee the continued presence of Chinese automobile manufacturers in post-sanctions era, compare to other competitors? Due to the presence of Chinese automobile manufacturers in Iran before lifting the sanctions, now with the lifting of sanctions and return to a normal situation, what changes are needed for Chinese automobile manufacturers? What do Iranians expect in the new situation after the lifting of sanctions? The authors by a descriptive-analytical method try to explain the situation of Chinese Automobile manufacturers companies in Iran and believe that now the Chinese must improve the quality of their goods.

European diesel car manufacturers may be gaming emissions tests

European diesel car manufacturers may be gaming emissions tests

The Passenger Car in Portugal: Features of Functional Modules

This article focuses on the study of the analysis model on the functional modules of the passenger car in Portugal, made in the course of the PhD in Design. In an analysis with reference to the global segmentation of passenger car, appealed to the formation of a summary table showing the classification of segments of the key players in the sector, in particular brands of car manufacturers, the International Organization of Automobile Manufacturers, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers and the Automobile Association of Portugal. Therefore, we compared the different rating scales, number of categories and technical specifications that serve to differentiate the segments together. In addition to this information, also considered the conclusions reached up to the questionnaire to the target audience. Finally, to complete the set of samples, were consulted the three sites of the best-selling brands in Portugal during the year 2013 (Renault, Peugeot and Volkswagen) and two sites of major international companies rent-a-car to operating in Portugal (Europcar and Avis). With these three fields samples proceeded to completion of the final motion diagram that identifies the functional modules of each of the segments of the passenger car, including the engine, the interior front and rear passengers, the zone for the transport of luggage, pets or goods and finally the variations of the main module for each typologies.

Public Support to the European Car Industry: The Impact of the Financial Crisis

We provide a quantification of public support for the European car industry during the past decade. First, we identify the most relevant instruments of state aid and non-state aid public support. Second, we aim to estimate the amount of public support for European car manufacturers for each instrument and investigate its dynamics. Three factors complicate the overall quantification of public support for each instrument: (i) the Commission does not scrutinize, and hence does not quantify all public support measures; (ii) the available information depends on whether the state aid is granted to individual companies, or in the form of general schemes; and (iii) the available information depends on whether the aid is granted in the form of a grant, soft loan or guarantee. Our lower bound estimate of state aid suggests that the aid declined over the pre-crisis period, but peaked at €1.2 billion as a response to the last financial and economic crisis in 2009. Perhaps even more strikingly, this state aid was combined with an unprecedented amount of other public support: scrapping schemes of at least €4.0 billion, and loans from the European Investment Bank of €2.8 billion, or an equivalent of €400 million of “aid element” .