This week we give you the names of the finalists for the 2023 Automotive News PACE Award.
There are 34 of them, from 28 companies in 11 countries, including Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland.
Automotive News started the PACE Award 29 years ago. It is a way to identify the technical innovations developed by suppliers — in components, materials, functionality, manufacturability, cost and efficiency in both product and process — that have made the journey from the brainstorm stage into the commercial market.
To be honest, we are as astonished as you are every year that companies keep coming up with brilliant innovations to wow their automaker customers and help advance the auto industry.
It’s not easy.
What hasn’t been thought of already? Drawing board ideas hit roadblocks that cause them to be pushed off into the R&D center trash bin. The mechanics won’t work. It adds unwanted weight. It costs too much. The automaker isn’t interested in moving in that direction. Or the supplier’s home office is cutting budgets.
And yet, here we are again. With 34 proven innovations from around the world.
It never stops.
And just when you might assume that all the breakthrough ideas of 2023 surely must be focused on next-generation electric vehicles or cutting-edge work in emerging technologies such as automated driving controls and night vision, that turns out to be not entirely the case. This year’s finalists include innovations in the industry’s basic meat n’ potato pursuits — a lighter wheel, better antifreeze management, new transmission controls and a new diesel fuel pump.
Our annual award program, overseen by independent judges, is an amazing glimpse into how the car business works. Nothing stands still. Competition drives it like a rocket.
And in the end, we can’t tell you who the PACE Award winners will be because they haven’t been selected yet. We’ll be waiting for that news right along with you.