It’s little wonder why car sales are down. We have less money to spend, cars last longer and the new negative trend for the auto companies is we are driving a less – a lot less. In September, pre-plunge gas prices convinced the nation to drive 10.7 billion miles less or 4.4 per cent than in September, 2007. We drove a total 232.8 billion miles for the month and 3.5 per cent less for the first nine months of 2008 as compared to 2007.
The numbers are compiled by the Federal Highway Administration, which is part of U.S. DOT. This year will be the first annual decline since 1983 with the biggest drop coming in the south where gas was not only expensive, but scarce in some areas. Of course, the low gas prices of the past six weeks will bump up the miles a bit, but the recession will likely balance that increase out. Read the reams of stats.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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