Car Insurance

Europe is a real battleground when it comes to light commercial vehicles (LCVs). Last year, Renault was the market leader with a 14.1%, followed by Citroen (10.2%), Fiat (9.8%), Ford (9.3%), Mercedes-Benz (8.4%) and Volkswagen (8.2%). Opel, GM’s European brand, has seen its market share slump to just over 4%, a situation it expects to quickly change based on a cooperative agreement with Renault. Under the terms of the December 1996 pact, the French automaker was to supply its existing Master (2.8 to 3.5 ton) and Trafic series (2 to 2.8 ton) to GM Europe for its Opel and Vauxhall brands. Together, GM and Renault would create the replacement for the Trafic.

The first real fruits of that collaboration are now in dealers’ showrooms throughout Western Europe. While Opel (and its UK sister Vauxhall) have had some success in selling the Movano and Arena–Renault’s re-badged Master and the previous Trafic respectively–it is with the new Vivaro, the new Renault Trafic, where the real hopes lie.

Work began on the new Trafic/Vivaro project, code-named X83, in early 1997. Renault was responsible for the design and engineering, and GM for the manufacturing. Within Renault, X83 became the responsibility of the DVU, the Direction Vehicules Utilitaires, a specialized business unit created to improve the French auto-maker’s position within the commercial vehicle market. An integral part of this unit is i-DVU, a department of more than 830 engineers in charge of studying, developing, and perfecting new models while also devising the manufacturing processes.

One of the first problems for the Renault/GM combine was the supply chain. It was not just a question of supplying parts at the cheapest possible price, but which company’s working practices would be followed. Renault has long looked for the active participation of its suppliers in the design process. Opel has tended to look for solutions in-house. Also, Renault asks that its suppliers validate the parts they supply and certify their facilities. Opel does not. The French company took the lead.

The companies agreed that many of the vehicle’s systems and modules, including the seats and trim, instrument panels, HVAC unit, engine cooling and exhaust systems, and the front and rear axles would be outsourced. To this were added stamped parts and subassemblies like the rear side members and the body side, although this was partly the result of a lack of space in the plants. Engines and gearboxes for the Trafic/Vivaro are sourced from Renault and include a pair of 1.0-liter common-rail diesels (82 or 100 hp) and a 2.0-liter gasoline engine producing 120 hp. The six-speed gearbox used on all but the 82 hp engine is derived from the Renault Laguna.

The Trafic/Vivavro will be built at two plants in Europe and it may even be assembled in Brazil at a later date. GM, which is responsible for manufacturing the vehicles, opted for its BC Vehicles plant at Luton, UK, and Nissan’s plant in Barcelona, Spain. Once fully ramped up, total annual capacity should be around 150,000 units, with 86,000 coming out of Luton and 64,000 out of Barcelona. It’s possible that Renault’s plant in Curitiba, Brazil also will produce the new model alongside Renault’s Master.

Producing the vehicle at Luton means dealing with the strength of the British pound versus the euro. Since the suppliers contracts were written in 1999, the pound has appreciated by around a fifth, leading to some serious financial implications. GM in particular has made light of it, saying decisions can’t be made on the daily currency rate and that a van’s lifecycle is far longer than a passenger car’s.

Nevertheless, the importance to both Renault and GM of the new Trafic can’t be overstated. Nissan and Renault together rank fifth in the international LCV market with 750,000 vehicles sold worldwide, and have a 7% market share. Nissan’s LCV production accounts for 230,000 units sold worldwide (mainly pick-ups), including 150,000 units in North America and 25,000 in Western Europe.

Renault has identified the LCV market, as defined by European standards, as an important area for growth. Between 1995 and 2000, it grew by 10% to nearly 10 million units worldwide. In developed countries, LCVs are a way of penetrating the company fleet market, which in Western Europe accounts for 25% of all passenger and car sales. Meanwhile, LCVs enable automakers to penetrate the automobile market in emerging countries. For example, in countries such as Thailand (68%), China (63%), and Korea (51%), the LCV share is the greater of the two.

This is why both Renault and GM are keen to exploit their five-year old partnership. Renault says that excluding sales of Nissan vehicles, it has targeted 2004 worldwide sales of around 400,000 units in 2004 and 700,000 in 2010. Of these, less than half will be in Europe.

Renault, however, is not stopping there. It is developing a platform with Nissan designed to renew the LCV range that will contain Japanese powertrain components. These include placing Nissan’s 3.0-liter commonrail diesel engine in the Master and a Nissan rear axle in the Kangoo 4×4. Though the spearhead for its move into the Asia-Pacific region, Nissan also will sell re-badged versions of Renault’s Master, Trafic, and Kangoo in Europe, as well as a Brazilian-built version of its own Frontier pick-up in Mercosur.

One of the most exciting recent developments is the expanded capability to measure the performance of freight cars as they roll down the track. I call this “dynamic car measurement” because it measures the action of the car as it operates, as compared to inspection of the individual components in a static environment. Though hot bearing and dragging equipment detectors have been around for a generation, these devices detect car components that have already failed. Recently, devices that measure car performance in a predictive way have become available. Their further development and deployment has great promise for rail safety, car and track maintenance, lading loss and damage, and even regulatory reform.

Since the 1970s, track geometry cars (and, more recently split-axle gauge restraint measurement cars) have been able to measure track under load to see how it behaves during the passage of a train. Valuable information from those automated testing programs went a long way toward improving track safety. Car inspection, on the other hand, relies almost entirely on visual inspection of standing cars, and the standards applied are aimed at the structural integrity of the car and its key components (flange thickness, structural cracks, etc.). Those standards generally don’t address the systemic performance of a car in motion. Dynamic car

Among the dynamic measuring devices now available to railroads, the most common is the WILD (wheel impact load detector). There are many of these deployed, and they regularly find wheels too flat to prudently or even safely continue to operate. It’s not a large percentage of the wheels inspected, but it is enough to make a difference in bearing maintenance and rail integrity.

TPDs (truck performance detectors) now measure the steering ability of the car. This new technology will go a long way toward improving the safety of trains negotiating curves and turnouts, the two places where most derailments occur.

Ride quality monitors (an accelerometer placed on a car, with g-force thresholds set, and a real-time link through GPS to a processing center to analyze location, speed, and type of force on the car–lateral, vertical, longitudinal) now can measure more conditions, more accurately, and locate them more precisely than the earlier versions used in loss and damage prevention. Ride quality is a combination of whatever the track is doing and how the car is reacting to the track it’s riding on. A pilot program I ran showed that both track and car were factors: Track and car conditions that were well within the existing safety and maintenance standards could nevertheless create a rough ride at a given location. Analyzing this data showed that valuable insight could be gained into the performance of an individual car. In one example, in an 18-month-long study of eight high mileage cars, 89% of all the lateral exceptions recorded were recorded on one car. In another, a single car in a unit train was experiencing excessive loss and damage. When equipped with a monitor that gave insight into its behavior, a $400 repair to one of the trucks eliminated the problem.

Acoustic beating detectors show real promise in predictive assessment of bearings so that incipient failures can be dealt with before they actually occur.

The INTERRIS (Integrated Railway Remote Information Service) program being deployed by the AAR to share information among beating detectors on all railroads is another step forward in proactive, predictive car performance measurement.

For years, railroaders have dreamed of having performance standards rather than design criteria–visual specifications that currently form the basis of FRA standards. Performance standards can help cull out “bad actors” before they cause trouble, leaving “good actors” in service. Dynamic car measurement is a giant step toward that end. If beatings show no hint of failure, if wheels are round, if the car steers adequately, and if the ride quality for the class of service is satisfactory, then the car is a good car. If not, repairs should be made in a timely fashion, performance being the main criteria.

It will take a lot of effort and arm-wrestling to get to that ultimate vision. There are many stakeholders, including private car owners, and there is still much difference of opinion about proper thresholds to attach to the term “acceptable performance.” Point is, these measurement capabilities are here and now, they are affordable, and the information can be used today to make safer, better, more competitive railroads.

Zavala v. Burlington Motor Carriers, Inc., Tex., Webb County 111th Jud. Dist. Ct., No. 98-CVE-01174-D2, Jan. 24,2000.

Zavala, 23, her sister, 16, and her sister’s friend, 20, were passengers in a car traveling on a highway. The driver reportedly had poor visibility due to heavy fog. The car collided with a truck that had jackknifed and blocked all lanes of traffic after attempting to back up to a missed exit. The driver of the car suffered fatal injuries.

Zavala suffered severe traumatic brain injury, including a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a right frontal contusion, and an open skull fracture. She has permanent brain damage resulting in loss of motor and cognitive functions. Her medical expenses totaled approximately $137,800. She had been a student and has been unable to return to school. She also had been bilingual before the accident, but can now speak only Spanish.

Her sister suffered fractures of her cheekbones, nose, and orbital floor, requiring extensive plastic surgery. Her medical expenses totaled about $63,900. A high school student, she was able to earn her diploma following the accident. The friend suffered a lacerated elbow and scalp, fractures to his right hand and left thumb, and herniated disks. His medical expenses totaled approximately $45,700. He had been a delivery driver earning $8.50 per hour. He has not returned to work.

The passengers sued the owner of the truck and the driver, alleging negligence in backing up a truck on a highway. Plaintiffs also claimed the driver was inadequately trained and that the owner of the truck should have had a policy requiring a supervising driver to stay awake and provide actual supervision for trainee drivers. At the time of the accident, the driver’s supervisor was asleep in the truck.

The parties settled for $11.5 million. The apportionment among plaintiffs is undisclosed.

Plaintiffs’ experts included Bill Greenlees, accident reconstruction, San Antonio, Tex.; Pamela Lewis, vocational rehabilitation, Houston, Tex.; and Aaron Lloyd, pain management; Leora Peiser, psychiatry; and Jerold Lancourt, orthopedics, all of Dallas, Tex.

Defendants’ experts were Kenneth A. Thompson, truck safety, Louisburg, Kan.; and A.O. Pipkin, accident reconstruction, Dallas, Tex.