U S.AUTO SCENE - METRO-EOITION • SEPTEMBER 20, 1999. PAGE 9

De lte B Not Re---- ----­By Joseph Cabadas News Director

Don' t exp ect th e auto mobile companies to tout the advantages of aluminum, said Jason Vines, Nissan vi ce presid ent, to a gath­er ing of aluminum industry r ep­resentatives.

Vi nes, a I S-year veteran of the former Chrysler Corp. and now vice president of Nissan North America Corporate Communica­ti on s, spoke Sept. 9 to atte ndees of The Aluminum Asso ciat ion 's d inner at Th e Henry Ford Mu­seurn , Dearborn.

Vin es' comments wer e inter­laced with various jo kes: Ford Motor Co. is supposedly deciding to build an all -aluminum version of the Expedition s po rt-utillty -ve­hicle, he said , on e that could be slightly smaller than a Boeing 747 because of the weight sav ings.

Or poking fun at the Cadil lac­Lincoln controvers y , and whi ch domestic luxury di vi sion actually had the No. 1 sales month earlier this year, com menting that th e Cadil lac Division of General Motors Corp. announced sales for the month of September.

When questioned why they an­nounced sales bef ore th e month was actuall y comp lete, a Cadi llac spokesman said th e figures were just an estimate either way , Vines joked.

On a more serious note, Vines advised th e attendees of t he Alu­minum Associati on conference that they should "not ju st preach about their product's benefits to the detriment of co mpet itors" ­i.e., that alum inum is "better" than ir on and steel because of it s lighter wei ght and recyclab il ity .

The comnan les of th e alu minum

fits, Automakers to Ad t Aluminum

industry have to think like auto ­motive suppli ers and not just be commodity peddlers , Vines said. Th e best way to do this is to mov e from the attitude of "we sell alu­minum" to "we sell solutions ," even if that means working in con­cer t with "your enemies" - i .e., the steel industry.

"We know that most likely, dur­ing our lifetime, automobiles will be composed of a number of dif­fer ent materials and th e alu minum industry needs to share its re­sources to help or iginal equip­ment manufact urers (OEMs ) meet th eir needs and t he problems they face and not just sell a nonferrous metal ," Vin es said.

Or iginall y , aluminum was looked at as a hi gh-t ech solution becaus e of its light weight, he continued, but aluminum pr oducts are so commo uplace now that aluminum companies shouldu't r ely on the auto industry to promote their product.

Th e aluminum industry needs to pr omote its product and have more informat ion than th eir cus­tomer s, the auto compani es.

"The aut om otive compa nies aren 't promoting the use of steel - th e st eel industry is doing that," Vin es said, to con trast th e two metal industries' approaches.

Vin es also advised th e group not to get suck ed into a fight with it s compet i tors for a compet i t ive edge, because the uglier and more vocal a media war becom es, the mo re li kely it is that th e indus­try 's customers, the auto compa­ni es, may decide on a "w inner ," which may not be the alumin um industr y.

"P lay well with your peers " and avoid one-upmanship," Vin es said. "Oftent imes, one-upmanship leads

JASON VINES compani es to cutt ing off one of t heir legs if it causes t heir com ­peti to r, or competi t ors, to los e both legs.

"Y ou may win in th e press, bu t yo u' re st ill going tu limp wh en it s over.

"T he automobile indust ry has been a benc hmark for on e-up man­sh ip ," he co nti nued . "One com­pany anno unced to a large col­lect ion of auto moti ve journ ali sts that they would soon come out w it h a clean SUV. Not a cleaner SUV, mind you, but a clean SUV.

"So, where does that put the in­dustry, including the company making the bo ld statement'? To the media and to the public, the rest of the industry was selling 'd ir ty ' SUYs."

Th e alu minum industry , like the auto industry, needs to develop a

.co hesive strategy wi th a "big pic­ture vision, " especially on publ ic pol icy issues, because it will ben­efit its cu stomers and each com­pany too, Vines added.