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DETROIT -- In a move to help it focus on a relatively new and growing customer base involving lightweight component applications for titanium in cars and trucks, Titanium Metals Corp. (Timet) has established a new division known as Timet Automotive.

Kurt Faller, who previously served as Timet's director of automotive development, will head the new business unit as president. The unit will be based in Morgantown, Pa.

The move by Denver-based Timet would appear to run counter to recent feedback from Detroit regarding the potential for expanded near-term use of titanium components in automotive platforms (AMM, Oct. 3). Detroit engineers and designers interviewed during the second half of 2001, while acknowledging that titanium remained a promising material option given its light weight and corrosion-resistance properties, remained parked in a wait-and-see mode regarding their commitment to specify titanium for future automotive applications.

In addition, recent zero financing deals, extended warranties and cash-back incentives from Detroit, all designed to attract cautious consumers in a sluggish market, have chipped away at overall vehicle profitability. The lower profits that result from these incentives mean that the use of premium-cost materials, such as titanium, typically is put on the back burner.

Despite all the prevailing wisdom, however, Timet's more optimistic assessment is that the formation of the new division would allow it respond to the emerging market for titanium in vehicles in North America, Europe and Japan. The new division will focus on providing "the best-value titanium mill. products to the automotive industry's quality standards," said J. Landis Martin, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Timet.

"The need to meet the conflicting goals of higher mileage; lower emissions and improved safety has caused auto manufacturers to increase their applications of lightweight materials," Martin said. "And titanium provides performance characteristics in the automotive environment that are unmatched by other metals."

High material cost compared with steel and aluminum remains the principal disadvantage for titanium in the automotive sector. However, Timet spokesmen countered that the average price of titanium industrial mill products, adjusted for inflation, was less than half the 1981 level, and that industrial grades cost less than half of aerospace grades.

# posted by Medical Information : 3:22 AM