At a ceremony in Bordeaux-Mérignac, France, Dassault Aviation received full type certification for the Falcon 7X from both the EASA and FAA. Patrick Goudou, Executive Director of the EASA, and John Hickey, Director, Aircraft Certification Service for the FAA, were on hand to sign the type certificate. The Falcon 7X is expected to enter service before the end of June 2007. “Certification is a new chapter in the life of every airplane,” said Charles Edelstenne, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation. “But when the aircraft has broken new ground and surpassed so many technical barriers it is truly an event to be remembered. When we look back on this event in the future, it will be remembered as a day that brought the design, manufacturing and efficiency of business aircraft to a new level.” 

“The cooperation from both the EASA and FAA during the certification process was extraordinary,” said Alain Picard, Director of Certification for Dassault Aviation. “The Falcon 7X introduces numerous new technologies never before used in business aviation so the challenge of substantiation was a bit more challenging.” The 5950 nm Falcon 7X accomplished many firsts. It is the first airplane ever designed and built in an entirely virtual environment using Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) philosophy. And largely due to the utilization of the PLM processes, the time required to manufacture and complete the first flight-test ready 7X was much lower by as much as 50per cent compared to previous Falcons.

Escorts, a leading manufacturer and supplier of agricultural machinery, products, auto suspension and ancillary products and railway equipment put up a strong performance in the second consecutive quarter ended March 2007 (FY October 2006 to September 2007). Moving ahead as per its chalked out resurgence program, the company's production and sales volumes clocked considerable growth (sales volume of tractors up 24 per cent at 14,795 from 11,970 in the corresponding quarter of previous year).

The Intermachinery India Expo 2007 will be held in India between 17th and 19th May at Mumbai. Held for the first time in India, the expo is organised by China National Machinery & Equipment Import & Export Corporation (CMEC) in association with the international exhibition company, Worldex GEC. It is also supported by All India Association of Industries (AIAI) and the Trade Development bureau (TDB), Ministry of Commerce, P.T. China, and is expected to include more than 180 Chinese manufacturers who are known to be technology leaders of hi-tech machinery and equipment. 

The exhibition will showcase the latest machinery and equipment from China's leading manufacturers and suppliers that demonstrate highly innovative technologies for today's ever-changing industry. New business models depicting future developments in the industries will also be presented to allow visitors and exhibitors a crystal ball view on the future of global industry. On display will be a wide array of products like machinery, equipment and accessories for sectors like sheet metal fabrication; plastics and rubber processing; packaging; weaving; chemicals; construction, engineering, transport; agriculture, food processing, woodwork, footwear, etc, in addition to machine tools, electrotechnics, dynamotors and other machinery, equipment, material and accessories.

BioKing Green Energy NV, a European leader in alternative energy production, has announced that it has developed new, high performance and continuous photo-bioreactors for algae for the purpose of producing biodiesel. 

BioKing Green Energy NV is a recently formed subsidiary, fully owned by BioKing Inc. It will engage in research and development of algae cultivation as an energy source for the production of biodiesel, which is an economically feasible and eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-based fuels. The production facilities for algae bio fuels will be based in The Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. 

Hans and Marco van de Ven, founders of BioKing state: “With the increasing interest in biodiesel as an alternative to petrodiesel, many have looked at the possibility of growing even more oilseed crops as a solution to the problem of peak oil. However, there are two problems with this approach. Firstly, cultivation of even more oilseed crops will usurp valuable space needed to grow food crops to feed mankind. And secondly, traditional oilseed crops are not the most productive or efficient source of vegetable oil. Micro-algae have the highest potential of energy yield in vegetable oil crops. Some species of algae are ideally suited for biodiesel production due to their high oil content, some as much as 50%, and their extremely fast growth rates. They can grow in adverse conditions like deserts and saline water. That is why algae are the crop of the future.” 

BioKing Inc is a developer of scalable photo-bioreactors for the production of biodiesel developed with patented technology. They also produce other valuable bio-commodities produced from algae oil. This technology has the potential to dramatically improve biodiesel yields from algae oil. 

“After only 3.5 hours inside the newly designed continuous photo-bioreactor system algae can be collected and processed,” van de Ven states. “ With our fast growing algae and our advanced photo-bioreactor it only takes four days to be in full production and to collect the first algae. And the cost of biodiesel feedstock will only be 5/10 cents a litre.” 

BioKing Inc., is a global manufacturer of biodiesel equipment, based in the Netherlands. They aim to build a world-wide sustainable network that will deliver value from "earth-to-engine". Their operations cover agronomy, refining and trading. 

“We are pioneering the science of biodiesel production. We design, build, own, operate and market biodiesel refineries. We also manufacture, transport and trade algae, algae bioreactors, algae oils and biodiesel. Our vision is to be the world's leader in the biodiesel industry,” says Van de Ven. (Hans van de Ven, President, BioKing, B.V. Tel: + 31 (0)113- 311- 499. Fax: + 31 (0)113- 567- 097 E-mail: info@bioking.nl).

Korean carmaker, Kia Motors Corporation, in conjunction with Hyundai Motor, has become an official global sponsor of the upcoming UEFA European Football Championship (UEFA EURO 2008). The partnership is expected to broaden Kia’s long-term partnership with football, which started with the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan and now includes official partnerships with FIFA until 2014 and the Chinese national men’s and women’s football teams. 

The UEFA EURO 2008 sponsorship will entitle Kia to promote its brand on perimeter boards around the stadiums and through official UEFA TV broadcast partners during the event, and use the event’s official logo in company media materials. Kia will also provide official vehicles that will be used during the event.

The smallest LCV from Tata, the Ace, was launched in Nepal recently. After Sri Lanka, it is Nepal where the Ace has been introduced outside of India. The Ace received tremendous response in India after it was launched and has sold close to 96, 000 units in India and Sri Lanka. Powered by a small and efficient unique twin cylinder 16bhp IDI 700cc diesel engine, the vehicle has the ability to carry a variety of payloads and the agility to navigate narrow by-lanes owing to its turning radius of 4.3 metres. The Ace also carries a 36000-km/12-month warranty, and is backed by comprehensive spares and service network of 20 service stations across Nepal. The Ace will be sold in Nepal through Tata Motors' distributor, Sipradi Trading. Tata Motors has been present in Nepal for over four decades. The entire commercial vehicle range - comprising trucks, tippers, buses, pick-ups and the passenger car range is currently available in Nepal.

The Automotive Test, Automation and Design Summit 2007 held at Delhi served a platform to share domain knowledge and best practices in automotive test, automation and design arenas. The summit, which saw participation from auto companies like Maruti Udyog, Eicher Engineering, Ashok Leyland, Sona Koyo Steering, Tata Motors, Brakes India, Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto, Minda Corporation, Lucas TVS, Sundaram Clayton, Havells India, AVL India and National Engineering Industries among others was organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with National Instruments (NI). 

First of the three automotive summits planned in India, CII and NI will conduct the Summit in Pune and Chennai in the next two months. In his keynote address, Dr K Kumar, Advisor Engineering, MACE, Maruti Udyog, spoke on the latest trends and challenges faced by the Indian Automotive Industry. Jayaram Pillai, Regional Manager for India, Russia & Arabia, National Instruments, drew attention towards building flexible, scalable systems for automotive test, automation and design and highlighted the innovations that NI has to offer for rapidly evolving Indian automotive industry. “India’s automotive market is rapidly growing, and it being one of the most active countries when it comes to engineering, we are excited to introduce the Graphical System Design approach to the automotive design engineers. In this way we want to make their jobs easier and help them deliver faster development time and raise the bar for success,” said Pillai. The event saw presentations by Eicher Engineering, Ashok Leyland, Brakes India and Apna Technologies & Solutions on topics ranging from ‘Real Time Applications of Automotive Simulations’ to ‘Reduce Time and Increase Quality with Vehicle and Component Testing.’ They gave the attendees a holistic perspective of the user defined, cost effective and scalable test, automation and design solutions offered by National Instruments for the automotive industry.

Car market leader Maruti Udyog Limited registered Total Income of Rs 152,523 million (Net of Excise) during fiscal 2006-07, a growth of 22.2 per cent over the previous year. Profit Before Tax went up to Rs 22,798 million in 2006-07, a growth of 30.3 per cent over the previous year. Net Profit stood at Rs 15,620 million, up 31.4 per cent over fiscal 2005-06. 

In Q4, Total Income (Net of Excise) was Rs 46,347 million during January-March 2007, a growth of 36.6 per cent compared to the same period of the previous year. Net Profit for January-March 2007 stood at Rs 4,486 million, up 24.3 per cent over January-March 2006. 

During the fiscal 2006-07 Maruti sold a record 674, 924 units, including exports of 39,295 units. This was the highest ever annual sales for the company. It represented a growth of 20.1 per cent over the previous year. 

Besides launching WagonR Duo and the stylish Zen Estilo during the fiscal, the company entered the diesel segment with Swift Diesel. All these new launches found immediate customer acceptance and performed exceedingly well during the year.