Dana Spins Liberty's Wheels
Continuing more than 60 years of support of Jeep vehicles, the Dana Corporation will supply rear main driveshafts and independent front and beam-style rear axles for DaimlerChrysler Corporation's '02 Jeep Liberty SUV. The driveshafts, which feature a combination of Spicer components, will be assembled at the Spicer Driveshaft Group's Toledo Regional Driveshaft Center for delivery to DC's new Toledo North Assembly Plant. The Spicer independent front and beam rear axle assemblies offer a plethora of enhancements, including an all-aluminum carrier and tube for improved fuel efficiency, a larger pinion stem and bearings for enhanced NVH characteristics, and net-formed differential gears for increased strength and durability. Dana will supply a portion of the rear axles with the remainder being manufactured by DaimlerChrysler. Additionally, Dana will supply a series of engine and fluid systems products for the Liberty, including coupled hose products, side curtain airbag tubes, cooling products, piston rings, bearings, and cylinder head gasket covers.
The Dana Corporation also recently introduced Dual Advantage, an industry-first, dual-disconnect system designed to uncouple both front axleshafts of a 4WD vehicle while in two-wheel drive. The system is capable of reducing drag by allowing the differential gears in the front axle to remain stationary when the axle is disconnected and lessens the potential in some applications for NVH issues.
More GPS Industry Bad News
Cobra Says "Never Mind" to Lowrance - Magellan GPS Is SoldIn our July '01 issue, we reported that Cobra Electronics (the CB folks) was buying Lowrance. Well, the deal has gone the way of the Magellan purchase of Lowrance. After many delays and a price reduction, Cobra announced that they were bowing out of the deal. It appears Cobra could not obtain its required financing for the deal, given poor sales results at Lowrance.
This month, we report that struggling Orbital Sciences Corporation has sold its GPS operations to Thales Group of France. Sold are OSC's Magellan commercial and recreational GPS product lines, the high-precision Ashtech unit, and Magellan's 50 percent interest in NavSol. This unit, a partnership with Hertz, supplies Magellan Nav 750 units in Hertz rental cars. 4 Wheel Drive and Sport Utility's last sweepstakes rig sported a Nav 750.
Thales Group is a huge enterprise with 2000 revenues of 1.6 billion Euros (if Euros can be considered real money). Magellan will be folded into Thales (pronounced Tal-ess) Navigation, a unit of Thales Information and Technology Services. Until now, Thales has not had retail product business. It is unclear what sort of effort may be put into the support of Magellan's marine and recreational product line - a line that has suffered from lack of innovation in the last few years.
This announcement furthers the position of the 800-pound gorilla in the recreational GPS market, Garmin. Garmin is the leader in the lower-end aviation GPS market, as well as in the middle and lower end of the marine GPS markets. This allows Garmin to offer derivative recreational GPS units at little additional research and development expense. For example, watch for Garmin offering a street-and-trail navigator using WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System). Garmin recently announced its 76 series of console and handheld marine GPS receivers. Want to bet there's an auto/recreation unit on the way?