Delphi Automotive Systems

How Delphi Automotive is working with consumer electronics companies to bring its customers technologies that are more associated with, well, consumer electronics rather than automotive electronics.

Although they are working the Delphi Manufacturing System hard, team members at the automotive supply company have come to realize that making improvements before equipment hits the factory floor can provide major leverage. Here's a look.

Traditionally, the second of the two Press Days at the Frankfurt Motor Show is when the supply side of the industry gives its press conferences and blows its trumpet. This year, that second day fell on September 12. Most press conferences were canceled, and those that did take place were solemn affairs that were necessarily cut short. When at presenting the Delphi Automotive Systems' reception, company president J.T. Battenberg, who was visibly moved by what had occurred in his homeland, called for a short silence before going ahead with a foreshortened review. Visteon Automotive Systems' president Pete Pestillo welcomed everybody, but gave no presentation at all, opting to point out that his executives on the stand were there for one-to-one talks.

While consumer electronics have long had a fast development cadence, these speeds are indicative of the pace that the auto industry must move in this space.

To be first to market with a new technology is a challenge in these highly competitive times, but Cadillac claims to have done just that with its 2001 Seville and Deville sedans.This Bose “infotainment” radio will provide Internet functionality in addition to tunes.Both models will offer the first application of an OEM-installed personal computer in a car.

Delphi Corp. is widening its horizons: It has brought out the Delphi XM SKYFi marine kit.

Technology may entirely transform everything from the instrument panel to the wiring harness—sooner, rather than later.

With some 40% of traffic fatalities resulting from vehicles going out of their lanes, government, industry and academia are all focusing on the ways and means to prevent this from happening. Here's a look at one project underway that could result in vehicle-installed systems by the end of the decade.

Extending EV Range“Range anxiety,” or concern that electric vehicles (EVs) don’t pack enough power to get drivers everywhere they need to go in one charge, remains an issue.

Plastics implementation expert Dr. Norm Kakarala of Delphi Automotive talks about the trends and developments in the application of plastics.

Andrew Brown, Jr., heads up tech at Delphi. His focused approach is helping drive the company forward, and is one that may be helpful for others to follow.

"The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress." -Charles Kettering

Electric vehicles, hybrid powertrains and fuel cells are generally seen as threedistinctly different development paths, but Delphi's chief technologist is championing a concept that brings them alltogether in one vehicle. Could this be the powertrain of the future?

ON ELECTRONICS

Till now, the STEP data exchange standard has been widely accepted in concept, but not really in practice. But that's changing in the automotive industry as more and more tests show STEP translators can effectively exchange information and CAD vendors start announcing STEP products.

The exaggerated claims have been quieted. E-business has now become, for some companies, another tool to help achieve better efficiencies. Here's what some companies are doing with this tool.

Delphi's exhaust gas heat exchanger; Green Manufacturing 101; What is GreenED?; Ford's Sustainable Materials Shopping List

Two big trends in automotive electronics: in-car entertainment and wireless connectivity are merging to make vehicles full-fledged “nodes” on the infotainment superhighway.

At this year’s SAE 2000 Congress & Exposition there was plenty of buzz and noise inside Cobo Center (including a Visteon-draped People Mover that rolled above the record-setting crowd). Here’s some of the audio, filtered.