Altair and the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) have announced the finalists for the 2018 Altair Enlighten award, which recognises organisations driving innovation in vehicle lightweighting. From an overwhelming number of entries received from around the globe, 57 finalists were chosen and submitted to an independent panel of judges to select the winners in four award categories. Each finalist represents an innovative initiative that has realised significant results or potential in weight saving, cost reduction and performance improvement.
‘It’s been a privilege to be associated with Altair and CAR to bring the Enlighten competition to
life,’ said Gary Latham, senior technological specialist at Pratt & Miller Engineering, and a long-time judge for the Enlighten Award. ‘Every year brings more submissions and increasingly clever ways of removing weight from our vehicles. Observing the submissions grow in quantity and quality over the years is very encouraging because it demonstrates the commitment by the automotive companies and their suppliers to decrease the mass of our vehicles leading to a cleaner future for all of us.’
The winners will be presented with their award at the 53rd CAR Management Briefing Seminars (MBS) held in Traverse City, Michigan on July 30, 2018. The Enlighten Award will be presented in four categories: Full Vehicle, Module, Enabling Technology, and a newly added category entitled ’The Future of Lightweighting’.
The new award opens the playing field up to technology that is not yet commercially available. It is reserved for innovative ideas, processes, materials and technologies that have significant potential to support lightweighting initiatives but have yet to be leveraged on a production vehicle platform. For this new category the expert panel of judges has narrowed down the entries to the top finalists, but the winner will be chosen by MBS attendees through an online voting process.
‘I’d like to thank all our nominees for their submissions and congratulate the finalists for the 2018 Altair Enlighten Award,’ said Richard Yen, senior vice-president, Global Automotive and Industry Verticals Team of Altair. ‘We appreciate the innovative insights and experiences shared by participating Industry leaders’ through the award competitive process which help us progress towards our mutual objectives to achieve vehicle weight savings and CO2 reduction in the automotive industry.’
