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EV infrastructure roll-out is continuing at pace, but efforts at establishing universal standards for the industry is still playing catch-up

In the future, utility customers will have real alternatives to grid power available to them. Energy efficiency and distributed generation are rapidly taking their place alongside traditional energy sources. Add in electric vehicles, and future customers may present a far different (and at times negative) load profile to the utility serving them. Already delivery systems with high concentrations of solar are experiencing adverse operational impacts today.

In March, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) mandated that new vehicles under 4500 kg must be equipped with rearview cameras by 1 May 2018. The phasing in process will begin two years before. 

Renault-Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn admitted last year that sales were at least four years behind targets, which he blamed on the slow rollout of support infrastructure.

The new applications are varied and the vertical markets benefiting from new devices range from condition monitoring in industrial environments, smart metering in energy market segments, to thermoelectric applications in vehicles, either terrestrial or other.

For all these applications, the same challenges requiring solutions arise. To begin with, rising raw material prices have been triggering a strong trend towards cutting down the material input as far as possible throughout the entire manufacturing process. In addition, with space being a restriction, the allowable amount and volume of conductors to be incorporated in any of the above devices is limited. At the same time, the processes, which are controlled by means of electric signals, are growing more and more diverse so that an increasing number of functions has to be taken care of by each conductor. In particular when it comes to building automobiles, aircraft or aerospace vehicles, exceptional weight efficiency is requested nowadays in order to minimize fuel consumption. The flexibility of a strand constitutes another property that can only be accomplished by increasing the number of single wires used. Just take the following example: A strand composed of 19 wires with a diameter of 0.20 mm each will end up having the same cross-section (0.6 mm²) as another strand made up of 850 wires with a diameter of 0.03 mm each, with the flexibility of the latter being significantly higher.

“Although high component costs and sluggish demand currently hamper the sales of electric two-wheel vehicles today, this market is poised for growth as consumer markets continue to expand and new high-profile competitors such as Harley Davidson enter the market,”

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. is looking to sell its large Candelaria copper mine in Chile, an asset sale that could raise several billion dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. The mine has attracted interest from Magris Resources Inc., a Toronto-based mining-investment vehicle headed by former Barrick Gold Corp. chief executive Aaron Regent, according to these people. Phoenix-based Freeport, which...

In an attempt to reduce costs and increase market share, automakers are relocating production facilities from high-cost regions such as North America and the European Union to low-cost regions such as China, India, South America and several developing countries. Following this trend CSM Worldwide believes that the combined production out of China and South America will make up more than 50% of the growth in global light vehicle production by 2015.

The electronic content, and thus the interconnect content, has been increasing in light vehicles, and this trend will continue through this forecast period.

Aluminum wire increasingly is used in passenger car wire harnesses. To reduce weight and improve gas mileage, the automotive companies are turning to aluminum wire, among other solutions. Aluminum wire always has the potential issue of galvanic corrosion between the wire and the beryllium-copper or phos-bronze contacts. Companies like TE Connectivity and Delphi have come up with solutions that alleviate this concern.