ALLIANCE

  This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 723893.  

Title

AffordabLe LIghtweight Automobiles AlliaNCE

Concept

6 of the European carmakers (DAIMLER, VW, TME, CRF, VOLVO, Opel), under the coordination of EUCAR, have joined forces to commonly address the high cost issue of innovations in vehicle lightweighting, having identified it as the major bottleneck towards their implementation in vehicle series and mass production.

The AffordabLe LIghtweight Automobiles AlliaNCE (ALLIANCE) has the ambition to develop novel advanced materials (steel, aluminium, hybrid) and production technologies, aiming at an average 25% weight reduction over 100k units/year, at costs of <3 €/kg. Additionally, ALLIANCE will develop a mass-optimizer software tool and a multi-parameter design optimisation methodology and process, aiming at an accelerated pre-assessment of technologies over existing designs in a holistic framework.

ALLIANCE will work on 8 different demonstrators of real vehicle models, 6 of which will be physically tested, aiming at market application by OEMs within 6 years from project end (in 2025). A transferability and scalability methodology will also be developed for results replication across other vehicle components and models in other segments.

ALLIANCE aims at becoming a central hub for innovation in lightweight design in Europe. To do so, it will establish an open inclusive framework towards external centres and clusters in this field, involving them in ALLIANCE development through an open lightweight design contest and dedicated workshops.

Participants

• Daimler AG, Germany (Coordinator)
• Volvo Personvagnar AB, Schweden
• Adam Opel AG, Germany (Participation ended)
• Toyota Motor Europe NV, Belgium
• Volkswagen AG, Germany
• Centro Ricerche Fiat SCpA, Italy
• TyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG, Germany
• Batz Sociedad Cooperativa, Spain
• Benteler Automobiltechnik GmbH, Germany
• Swerea KIMAB AB, Sweden
• inspire AG für mechatronische Produktionssysteme und Fertigungstechnik, Switzerland
• Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Germany
• Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany
• Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Germany
• Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
• Bax Innovation Consulting SL, Spain
• Ricardo Consulting Engineers Limited, United Kingdom
• Novelis Switzerland SA, Switzerland