Detroit Industry Mural of an automotive assembly line at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
"Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus" are the two mottos that adorn the Detroit City flag and they mean, "We hope for better days; it shall rise from the ashes."
The forward-looking sayings derive from the Detroit Fire of 1805, which levelled the burgeoning city. The devastated population, who chose not to abandon their city but to rebuild, would have looked on with pride as a century later, Detroit became Motor City, the home of the American Dream, and America's fourth largest city.
The 1950 population of 1.85 million with 296,000 manufacturing jobs, predominantly in automotive, was, however, the peak. What followed in the subsequent 68 years wasn't as immediate as the Great Fire, but equally as decimating.
Detroit's population in 2017 was just 673,104; it is the only city in the history of the U.S. to have a population rise above one million and then drop below. In 2013, the City filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
But there's nothing America loves more than a comeback story, and just like the words penned by the 19th Century town officials, Detroit is rising from the ashes thanks in large part to private investment downtown and the phenomenon that analysts are calling Auto 2.0.
Auto 2.0 is the buzzword that encapsulates the manufacture of greener and self-driving cars. With the king of Auto 2.0, Tesla being based in Silicon Valley and companies like Apple, Intel and Google exploring automotive tech, a worry for Detroit was that America's car manufacture resurgence may centralise in California.
But in 2019 Motor City looks to be winning the battle to retain its crown as the automotive manufacturing capital of America. In the space of two April days Ford Motor Co pumped 500 million USD in Michigan-based electric truck manufacturer Rivian Automotive LLC, and Google's Waymo LLC announced it will retool an American Axle & Manufacturing site in Detroit. This is on top of mainstays like General Motors building the Chevrolet Bolt - its all-electric vehicle, in the Orion Assembly Plant just north of the City.
A significant beneficiary of the automotive manufacturing's renaissance is the additive manufacturing (AM) industry. Additive technologies have long been put to use for automotive prototyping, tooling, and jigs and fixtures but for Auto 2.0 the technologies' ability to create complex, lighter, stronger designs is required, particularly in extending the range of electric vehicles.
An example of AM for Auto 2.0 already in the world is on the BMW i8 Roadster, where the design of the convertible's roof brackets was optimised and printed using selective laser melting technology. Those brackets are on every single i8 Roadster on the road, it's the kind of end-use AM application the automotive sector has been craving.
As a celebration of RAPID + TCT 2019 planting its feet in Motor City, the event's final day (Thursday, May 23) will be designated as 'Automotive Day'. Automotive Day kicks off with a keynote from BMW Group's Dr. Dominik Rietzel, who will discuss that i8 Roadster bracket amongst other applications in his keynote, "Shaping New Ways for Smart Automotive Production by Using AM".
"It's an honor for me, as an additive manufacturing representative of BMW Group, to talk in Detroit," Dominik told TCT. "I would say from my experience that every car manufacturer has been using AM in prototyping for many years now and we have all gained a lot experience as early adopters of technologies and materials. I think the major goal is to find out what can be done beyond prototyping. AM is a game-changer in that regard especially if you find production applications that can help us to protect the production lines."
RAPID + TCT takes place on 20-23 May at the Cobo Center in Detroit. Register here to attend and follow @TheTCTMagazine or head to our dedicated RAPID + TCT news section for more updates.
