Thanks to demand from the automotive industry, Mexican light metal casting has grown strongly in recent years. Nowadays, national foundrymen produce around 1.6 million tons of various products. Now the production has to be modernized in order to meet customer demands.

During the last weeks, two important announcements were made regarding the Hungarian automobile industry. One, the vehicle factory of Audi Hungaria Zrt. located in Győr has started the serial production of electric engines, and the other, it was revealed to no surprise that BMW is building a factory in Debrecen.

Electric cars or vehicles with other alternative drives are still more of a niche product. However, automobile manufacturers are already pushing ahead with these new drives — and are thus placing new demands on lightweight design and production.

Mazak will be presenting a cross-section of their machine program at the AMB. Altogether, eleven machines with different technologies from all machine series will be shown live in action. Laser welding process and milling are affected by automation as well.

The extrusion process of aluminum allows to take advantage of the qualities of aluminum and offers a larger number of design options. The use of aluminum alloys in the extrusion sector has grown annually by 6 % during the last 5 years.

The USA imposes punitive tariffs of 25 % on steel imports and ten percent on aluminium imports — the AMAG Group is expecting losses in the mid-single-digit million euro range. Meanwhile, VDA CEO Mattes calls for an "objective discussion".

The leading car companies are preparing for the breakthrough of electric mobility: According to an analysis by Ernst & Young, the 16 largest car companies in the world have initiated 25 investment projects in the past two years.

HP launched its Metal Jet Technology for the cost-effective production of high-quality metal parts in large quantities. The 3D metal print technology's first customers include Volkswagen.

With the acquisition of SIMSOLID by Altair, a new game-changing simulation technology for designers, design engineers, and simulation analysts will be enabled.

Electric vehicles are second or third cars for wealthy people, criticizes ZF boss Wolf-Henning Scheider — and calls for a "people's hybrid". His company is investing three billion euros in better hybrid technology, 800 million euros of which at the "flagship location" Saarbrücken.