TPT March 2017

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

aimed at a European carmaker after he issued similar warnings to two domestic carmakers, prompting conciliatory gestures by the targeted companies. Ford Motor Co cancelled plans for a $1.6 billion factory in Mexico and will instead expand an existing site in Michigan. Toyota Motor Corp, which is set to start producing cars at a new plant in Mexico starting in 2019, has said it would take Mr Trump’s views into account in its planning beyond that point. Despite what has been called, in the New York Times, Mr Trump’s “penchant for unpredictable disruption,” there were signs that the German carmakers were taking his Mexico- themed threats in stride. Peter Schwarzenbauer, who heads BMW’s Mini and Rolls-Royce brands as well as BMW’s car-sharing business, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Munich that the company sees no reason to change its plans in Mexico. He added, “Trump’s comments “We take the comments seriously, but it remains to be seen if and how the announcements will be implemented by the US administration,” Matthias Wissmann, president of the German auto industry association VDA, said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg . The US Congress will, he said, probably show “substantial resistance” against the duty proposals. (“German Automakers Push Back Trump’s Warning Over Mexican Plants,” 16 January) That may be, and the proofs mount that Mr Trump’s unpredictability is his most predictable characteristic. But the German carmakers are likely hoping that the new president’s fixation on Mexico-as-menace passes – and soon. While Mr Trump referred only to BMW by name, they all have built or are building capacity in Mexico to supply the US as well as South American markets. Volkswagen’s plant in Puebla is the biggest German auto factory in Mexico. Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler plans to aren’t really a surprise.” P REDICTABLE UNPREDICTABILITY

folds – which were then subjected to compression testing. The thinner-walled object was unexpectedly found to be able to withstand greater pressures, the likely result of the incremental deformation of the structure. Thicker walls hold higher deformation energy. MIT believes that using heat-and-pressure treatment to coat metal or polymer particles with graphene would leave the lightweight, super-strong structure of the graphene intact. “You can replace the material itself with anything,” Markus Buehler, MIT’s head of Civil and Environmental Engineering, told ArchDaily . “The geometry is the dominant factor.” Automot i ve Mr Trump extracted conciliatory gestures from Ford and Toyota, but the German carmakers may be made of sterner stuff Days before Donald J Trump’s inauguration as the 45 th president of the United States, German carmakers responded to Mr Trump’s threats of import duties on the autos they make in Mexico for sale in the US by pointing to the extensive expansion of their US production facilities in recent years. BMW AG, which the president-elect singled out in the course of an hour-long interview with the German newspaper Bild and the Times of London, published on 15 January, noted that its largest factory is in South Carolina and that cars made at a planned smaller factory in Mexico will be exported globally. Mr Trump had said that BMW will face a 35 per cent duty on vehicles it exports to the US from Mexico. As noted by Bloomberg reporters Elisabeth Behrmann and Christoph Rauwald, Mr Trump’s comments were the first

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MARCH 2017