12H • MAY 10, 2010

Ian Robertson:“We willbe the firstmanufacturer totake carbon fiberto effectivelyhigh volume.”

BMW plant will boostcarbon fiber volumeHans Greimelhgreimel@crain.com

BEIJING — BMW AG, which plansto make extensive use of carbon fiberin its upcoming Megacity electric ve-hicle, sees wider applications for thestrong, lightweight material.

“We will be the first manufacturerto take carbon fiber to effectivelyhigh volume,” BMW’s global saleshead, Ian Robertson, said last monthat the Beijing auto show.

Carbon fiber technology showspromise for uses beyond the electric-vehicle project, Robertson said. Thatcould help the venture generate bet-ter economies of scale.

The German manufacturer andpartner SGL Group plan to build a$100 million carbon fiber manu-facturing plant in Washingtonstate to supply parts of the newelectric car.

The Washington plant will makethe carbon fiber, and a factory in Ger-many will mold it into paneling forthe Megacity, which arrives in 2013,Robertson said.

“We are developing a lot of volumetechnology here,” he said.

Weight savings from carbon fiberin the Megacity nearly compensatesfor the extra weight of the electric ve-hicle’s batteries. The material also

has excellent crash safety character-istics.

Although carbon fiber is expensive,its weight savings also generate costadvantages.

“By using carbon fiber, which is alittle more expensive but 30 percentlighter, you don’t need as many bat-teries for the same range,” Robertsonsaid.

“There’s a trade-off that actuallyworks.”c

U.S. executive named CEOof Japanese glass companyJames B. Treecejtreece@crain.com

In a rare case of a non-Japaneseoutsider taking charge of a Japaneseauto supplier, Craig Naylor will be-come CEO of NSG Group, the formerNippon Sheet Glass Co.

Naylor, 61, joined NSG Group onMay 1 as CEO-designate, pendingelection to his new post by share-holders June 29. He will replace Kat-suji Fujimoto, who moves up to theceremonial post of chairman. For-mer Chairman Yozo Izuhara is retir-ing.

Naylor, a U.S. citizen, graduatedfrom Stevens Institute of Technologyin Hoboken, N.J., in 1970 with a

bachelor’s degree in chemical engi-neering. He had been a nonexecutivedirector of Delphi Corp. from Febru-ary 2005 through September 2009and spent 36 years at E.I. du Pont deNemours & Co.

Naylor held a variety of positions atDuPont, including regional directorof DuPont Automotive for Asia-Pa-cific, based in Japan, from 1987 to1991; group vice president for Asia-Pacific, based in China, in 2004; andgroup vice president of DuPont Elec-tronic and Communication Tech-nologies from June 2004 until De-cember 2006.

Automotive glass accounts forabout 40 percent of NSG’s sales. c

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