AUTOMOTIVE GREEN
Liège, Belgium September 14, 2012
by Stafford Wadsworth, Meuse-Rhine Journal
It appears that the Great Smoky Mountains and the Ardennes have something in common. Your editor became aware of this, on a trip from Liège into the Ardennes, headed by Laurence Slangen of SPI and Russ Froneberger from Global Consulting, accompanied by a group of gentlemen from Northeast Tennessee, and by Sjoerd Boomsma from LIOF. One of the visitors kept on remarking, as we drove through the Ardennes on our way to Spa Francorchamps, of the similarity between the Ardennes and the Great Smoky Mountains; and, interestingly enough, the motivation for the trip also concealed a commonality of interest.
It was occasioned by the visit of a delegation from NETVRIDA, the Northeast Tennessee Valley Region and Industrial Development Association, which came to Meuse-Rhine, in the first instance to Liège, to learn about the automotive industry in this part of the world. As everyone knows, Spa Francorchamps is the place where you see the cars tested on the racetrack and see them race. It is also a place where you can see the elegant Imperia Automobiles from the Liège Science Park putting their green propulsion through its paces. And at the same Spa Francorchamps track, we have the Liège or perhaps we should say Meuse-Rhine automotive campus. You can go there and try out the track with an experienced driver and even behind the wheel of your own car.
There is an introductory session on the second Monday of the month between April and October for which you can apply. You can bring your own people with you and book a room, which makes it an interesting outing for your own business. Then there are the big races and there is the option of introductory track-sessions, test days, public driving experience for enthusiasts and a series of production issues or on-track events.
And of course there’s a shop too, where you can get all sorts of things. The campus, as you’d expect, gives you an introduction at a whole range of levels to the automotive business
You might even see one of the Imperia’s models being tested on the green-propulsion front, where they present many options for green propulsion. The motorization of the Imperia GP, for example. The GP roadster relies on the technology developed exclusively for this vehicle and is the first sports car which responds to major environmental concerns.
Imperia proposes pure electric propulsion, but also offers an unlimited range. It switches to the thermal engine in case the batteries go empty; and in hybrid mode the batteries can also, preventively, be recharged when the vehicle is in motion.
The Imperia plant is at the Liège Science Park, which takes us a little way from the track at Francorchamps, and reminds us that there is an automotive focus throughout the Province of Liège, and also indeed in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion as a whole, where we have the continent’s top automotive engineering school at the University of Aachen, major automotive plants with Ford Genk, one hopes for as long as possible, and where BMW are now going to build there Minis at the Born plant in South Limburg.
Check the site for Imperia pictures: http://www.imperia-auto.be/en/
And here’s the link to Tennessee. In these green hills, so appreciated by the visitors. There is an automotive industry infrastructure, and exactly the same situation obtains in the world of the Great Smoky Mountains where the cities have musical names like Chattanooga.
The Netvrida region is the midpoint between Canada and Florida, and one of the best locations in the US for product distribution to major markets in the US, based on products for on population concentration.
It’s where Volkswagen decided to set up a plant. The Volkswagen Group of America is at home in Tennessee at a USD 1bn LEED® aggressive assembly plant, building new Volkswagen Passat models, designed just for the US. With more than 2,000 direct jobs and another 9,500, it’s also building a stronger community in Chattanooga and throughout Tennessee, with an emphasis on Morristown.
So these are two green and hilly areas that can learn from one another and perhaps cooperate.
Visitors included:
Alan Bridwell (Team leader)
Executive Director
Northeast Tennessee Valley Regional
Industrial Development Association
Richard Venable
CEO
Networks – Sullivan Partnership
Northeast Tennessee
Mitch Miller
Executive Vice-President
Washington County Economic
Development Council
Johnson City
Marshall Ramsey
Morristown Area
Chamber of Commerce
John Kilgore
Director of Economic Development
Scott County, Virginia EDA
