BMW Reportedly Wants Stake In Carbon-Fiber Specialist
By AutoObserver Staff October 18, 2011
The German newspaper Der Spiegel reported this week that Germanys BMW Group may want to invest in Germany-based carbon-fiber developer SGL Carbon, the companys partner in a U.S. manufacturing operation to make body panels for an all-new BMW city car. BMW and SGL will make carbon-fiber body panels for the so-called Megacity vehicle, which will have an electric only variant when it goes on sale sometime around 2013.
Details of the Megacity vehicle remain sketchy, but there may be several alternatively-powered variants, including an all-electric model. The $100-million BMW-SGL manufacturing site in Moses Lake, Wash., will not produce the carbon-fiber body panels the facility will create the carbon fibers used in the panels from raw materials called acrylic polymer. The U.S. plant will take the acrylic materials and process them into carbon fibers that will be shipped to Germany for processing into fabric sheets for the cars body panels. Germanys Volkswagen Group currently holds an 8-percent investment in SGL, according to the German newspaper.
AutoObserver Staff: The best in the business.
0 Comments.