SRG eyes a new piece of automotive real estate

Traverse City, Mich. — Auto supplier SRG Global Inc. wants to take its high profile chromed plastics to a new area of the car.

The maker of plated front grilles is validating a new, proprietary plastic called ThermoPlate for plated caps on tailpipes, which would allow designers to create a new look for the rear end of cars and trucks.

"This will give harmony to the front and back of the vehicle," President and CEO Dave Prater said during an interview at the Center for Automotive Research's Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City July 30-Aug. 2. "We're excited about this one. I think it can create a nice new segment for us in our manufacturing plants."

Troy, Mich.-based SRG may not be as well known as other plastics suppliers to the auto industry, but it is a key player across multiple vehicle lines globally. Its specialty of injection molding and plating exterior trim, especially front grilles, emblems and other high-profile parts, is is a niche that other companies are uninterested — or unable — to compete in.

With an estimated $1 billion in injection molding sales in North America in 2017, it was ranked No. 4 in the most recent Plastics News ranking. SRG has 22 facilities, including research sites, in nine countries. In the past six years it has built two plants in Mexico, one in China, expanded a paint line in Spain and updated the technology at its site in Poland.

ThermoPlate caps would give it more opportunities for growth.

The caps would cover just the end of a vehicle's exhaust system, since heat and performance requirements limit the materials that could be used in mufflers and pipes, Prater noted. However, switching to ThermoPlate caps could save 35-40 percent of the weight for that part of the pipe, depending on how big the caps are.

"And for designers, it gives them more finishes and more options," he said. "It can be molded into shapes stainless [steel] can't be shaped into."

SRG is in validation testing currently with three customers using the modified polymer Prater said is new to plated plastic. Tooling has already been built for one project and is in process for the others.

"We've had new products, new challenges and new designs, but ... this brings out all new opportunities for us," he said.

It is not the only new business SRG is pursuing.

The company is looking at opportunities to integrate electronics, lighting, sensors and other elements of autonomous vehicles in their exterior parts. For instance, Prater sees a future in which SRG could produce a grille with radar or lidar that could detect when pedestrians are nearby, and automatically light up a message on the grille informing those walkers that they are clear to cross the road.

"The real estate we occupy will be critical," he said.

SRG also hopes to combine its grilles with active grille shutters — the louvers that open and to cool the engine when it's hot, or close to improve aerodynamics, increasing fuel economy. Currently, shutters are placed behind the grille, but Prater said it could become part of the grille itself.

"We would still be giving [designers] jewelry and aesthetics, but add functionality," he said. "If you look to the megatrends s of the move to autonomous and the move to zero emission and lightweighting, it lines up with a lot of what we're trying to do."