Inergy Automotive Systems, a subsidiary of French auto parts supplier Plastic Omnium has recently unveiled its US$110 million plant located near Detroit, Michigan, that will produce 1.5 million plastic fuel tanks a year.

Its former Michigan plant located in Milan had closed earlier this year and a number of workers from that plant have been transferred to the newly opened plant.

Inergy Automotive has more than 30 plants worldwide and supplies about 14 million plastic fuel systems annually.

Meanwhile, Plastic Omnium, which is based in Levallois, France, has also recently opened a development centre in Lozorno, Slovakia, for its exterior and structural components operations.

It houses a 1,300-sq m of office space and 300-sq m of laboratories., as well as a pool of 110 engineers and technicians from eight different countries.

The centre hosts the main support services for the industrial development of automotive projects: computer aided design (CAD), styling, and product engineering, and industrial engineering, quality control, sales and purchasing.

It works closely with the ∑-Sigmatech international research & development centre located close to Lyon, in France, and technological cooperation agreements have also been signed with the universities of Bratislava and Košice in Slovakia and Zlín in the Czech Republic.

According to the firm, they have invested nearly EUR2 million in the construction of this engineering centre, designed to optimise the performance of automotive projects by moving closer to the customer and to reduce development costs.

The centre will work primarily with German carmakers, the firm’s largest customers.