Cadillac's upcoming CT6 sedan won't just be the brand's range-topping large sedan. It'll be a materials science tour-de-force, assembled by 205 robots using cutting-edge mixed-material manufacturing techniques—including fighter jet-style structural adhesives and aluminum-welding lasers. It's enough to make your old-school arc welder look like a hopeless antique.
Just as we told you back in October (and even before then), Cadillac wants the brand-new CT6 to be the brand's alpha machine, the most expensive and opulent of the 2016 lineup. The car, which we'll see at the New York Auto Show on March 31st ahead of a dealership debut later this year, promises to be a "top-of-range large luxury sedan with the agility and efficiency of a smaller vehicle," Cadillac boasts.
That requires some creative voodoo at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, using company-first techniques to bring diverse materials together to build the flagship sedan—like aluminum spot welding, flush-fit rivets, high-tech adhesives, and yes, frickin' lasers.
- 2016 Cadillac CT6 Spy Photos
- Cadillac's de Nyssechen Lays Out the Brand's Future
- Caddy's Marketing Chief Doesn't Care How Much You Hate Alphanumeric Car Names
Travis Hester, the executive chief engineer on the CT6 project, says "never before has an automaker brought this combination of joining techniques together for a single vehicle." We're excited to see what all that welding, riveting, and joining brings together. Just hope those laser robots don't get offended and start a robo-uprising—if they can weld aluminum, just imagine what they'd do to human flesh.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
Put the internet to work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment