Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Plastics News China
  • Rubber & Plastics News
logo-pn-color
Subscribe
  • Login
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • End Markets
    • FYI Charts
    • LSR World
    • Multimedia
    • NPE2021
    • K Show
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • Special Reports
    • Top materials of injection molders
      Recycled PET use by product category
      US PET, flexible packaging desintations
      Global fluropolymers additives market: CAGR
    • Exhibitors back NPE cancellation: ‘We couldn't take that risk'
      NPE2021 canceled as in-person event
      NPE reviews its options as pandemic prompts exhibitor to exit
      Machine builders meet pressing needs for plastic in 2020
    • Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Tailored maintenance for injection molding machines and robots
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Improve maintenance efficiency with e-connect.monitor
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Maximum precision for lowest shot weights
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Even more cost effectiveness for small precision parts
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • What Keeps You Up At Night
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Videos
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • CEO Issue
    • Best Places to Work
    • Processor of the Year
    • Rising Stars
    • Women Breaking the Mold
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • Heavy Metal
    • One Good Resin
    • BRICS and Plastics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Watching, and hoping, for progress in 2021
      COVID-19 stories dominate 2020 headlines
      Plastic Globes ask: Was there a lighter side in 2020?
      Compounders write a business survival story in 2020
    • Kickstart: Welcome to the VUCA economy
      Let's get social
      Kickstart: A Corvette crossover? No thanks
      Kickstart: Another push to reduce plastic packaging
    • Heavy Metal: Coronavirus edition, plus the work of working from home
      Don't put off succession planning
      What's a good gift for your cobot? Batteries?
      Here's some big ideas to mull over the holidays
    • Chase expands giving campaign in 2020
      McDivitt will showcase Ascend's COVID-19 work on CNBC's Mad Money
      Move over, Plastic Man: Here comes Plastic Woman
      Star in spotlight with West Virginia philanthropy award
    • The business case for producer responsibility
      Think divided government stalls plastics legislation? Think again
      ACC, NAM eye economic priorities in Biden presidency
      As scrap exports drop, will plastics recycling rate fall?
    • Just how big is thermoforming in North America?
      Changing names for compounders embracing corporate branding
      Diversity the key to outperforming the market
      A timeline of the industry's COVID response
    • Watching, and hoping, for progress in 2021
      The business case for producer responsibility
      Compounders write a business survival story in 2020
      Think divided government stalls plastics legislation? Think again
    • Plastics industry business owners: Listen to your future workforce
      Perspective: ‘Fake news' of a different sort?
      Perspective: Making products in the USA is good for the planet
      Perspective: Reflections on a decade of global industry collaboration on marine litter
    • Modernizing recycling infrastructure will benefit businesses as well as the environment
      Mailbag: Oil-plastics connection is overstated
      Mailbag: Plastics recycling not cost-effective
      Mailbag: Price increases hurting North American PE buyers
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
    • Maintenance can ensure efficient blender operation
      Dosing: Perfect for adding color
      Blending vs dosing: What you need to know
      Going low or high: Comparing volume
    • Colors and custom compounds
      In the laboratory: Compounding solutions
      Recycling content: Resins going ‘green’
      Compounding: Glass and other fillers
    • Dryer maintenance: Don’t err with air
      Dryers: Options for a shop’s process
      Dryer installation: Going central?
      Resins: Hygroscopic or non-hygroscopic
    • Electric injection molding presses: Efficiency is key
      Hydraulic injection molding machines
      Proper maintenance can prevent downtime
      Hybrid injection molding machines
    • Purging Hot runners: Open or closed methods
      Purging extrusion machinery
      Purging extrusion blow molding machines
      Purging: Chemical, abrasive and non-abrasive
    • Controls, special applications boost production, profitability
      Robot maintenance key for smooth operation
      High-speed robots: A rapid way to increase efficiency
      Robots: Every shape and size
    • Maintenance: Key for efficiency
      Shredders: Plastic in pieces
      Safety first for size reduction
      Granulators: The right fit
    • Structural foam molding: Flexibility for processors
      Video: Structural foam molding
    • Mold inventory: How many molds does a shop have?
      Molds: Innovation
      Mold changeover: Saving time and money
      How molds work
    • Labor: Apprenticeships may provide answer
      College training, programs
      Internships: Solving the skills gap in-house
      Lean Six Sigma: Transforming business operation
  • Events
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Ask the Expert
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
    • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Polymer Points Live - July 2020
      Polymer Points Live - October 2020
      Polymer Points Live - February 2021
      Polymer Points Live - August 2020
    • Plastics in Healthcare 2020
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Plastics in Healthcare
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
  • Resin Prices
    • All Resins
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Rankings
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Data Store
  • Directory
  • More+
    • Classifieds
    • Digital Edition
    • Newsletters
    • Sponsored Content
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • White Papers
    • Sponsored By Mitsubishi
      Innovative new technology from Mitsubishi Engineering-Plastics Corporation helps reduce emission footprints
      Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Sponsored Content By Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Canon Virginia Inc. brings collaboration to the table
      Sponsored By CDS MACHINES
      Facing medical equipment shortages during COVID-19 outbreak?
      Sponsored Content By Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Transform your molding capabilities with the Canon Shuttle Mold System
    • Sponsored By Conexiom
      Use Sales Order Automation to free up time for CSRs to focus on customers, not manual entry
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
December 10, 2012 01:00 AM

Light-car designers giving heavyweight automakers their toughest competition

Bill Bregar
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print

    Big automakers are acting way too cautious to meet the 2025 deadline to average 54.5 mpg, according to pioneering light-car designers.

    If that's the average, it means car fleets are going to need some models that get many more miles per gallon than that. And it isn't easy, said Oliver Kuttner, founder and CEO of Edison2, which developed a gasoline-engine car that can top 100 mpg and won $5 million in Progressive Insurance's Automotive X Prize in 2010.

    Since then, Edison2 has developed an electric car rated at 245 mpg.

    “I do believe that the lowest-hanging fruit is to start to open your eyes to the possibility of changing systems,” Kuttner said.

    He said mainstream automakers are in for a rude awakening. It takes at least five years — and a whole new approach to design — to accomplish the really big strides, he said.

    “I would say the industry underestimates how hard it is to improve the gas mileage,” Kuttner said during the Plastics in Lightweight Vehicles conference. “As you get beyond 50 miles per gallon, it gets really hard. From 50 to 60 is hard. Sixty to 70 is much harder, and 70 to 80 is almost impossible.”

    Kuttner joined Tata Technologies Ltd. designers Peter Davis and Raymond Peters, and Gregg Peterson from Lotus Engineering, to talk about super weight savings, during the conference, organized by Plastics News Nov. 6-7 in Livonia.

    Kuttner calls the X Prize winner the Very Light Car. He thinks that within five years, Edison2 will produce about 10,000 cars a year in the United States. Since the car can be assembled in a warehouse-type structure, with a simple modular structure, he said the VLC could become a world car.

    Peters, senior program manager at Tata Technologies, agreed with Kuttner about starting with a clean sheet. “The approach that has to be taken is not to start from what we know and change it. You have to start from zero and build it from there. It's a completely different way of approaching the problem,” he said.

    At the lightweighting conference, Tata displayed an eMo concept car (for electric mobility), sporting thermoplastic body panels with molded-in color.

    There are no welded parts; everything uses mechanical assembly.

    The most obvious innovations are a panoramic windshield and roof, with no roof pillar, and an integrated rear window/rear light assembly, all made of polycarbonate. There is no trunk, but the rear seats flip down for storage space, Peters said.

    Peters and Davis work at Tata Technologies' facility in Novi, Mich. Engineering teams from North America, Europe and India collaborated on the eMo. Tata Technologies is part of Tata Group, which also includes the Indian carmaker, but they work independently, with any automaker.

    The eMo could get the equivalent of 150 mpg and carry four adults. In production it would cost about $20,000.

    “To achieve what we attempt to do, you could not start with an existing vehicle,” Peters said.

    A Lotus Engineering Ltd. study showed a combination of materials — aluminum, magnesium, plastic and steel — will be a key to reducing weight, said Gregg Peterson, senior technology specialist. He gave examples of sandwich structures to give high strength, crash resistance and weight savings. Coated plastic parts can be used under the hood.

    Peterson is a member of a Lotus team that developed a vehicle body structure 37 percent lighter than one with a steel body. Lotus Engineering is part of Lotus Cars of Norfolk, England.

    “One of our goals was to have each part have two or three functions — multiple functions for every part,” he said.

    Ultralight aerogels foams give thermal insulation and acoustic dampening, Peterson said.

    Kuttner said the engineers of the Lynchburg, Va.-based Edison2 focused on taking out weight and mass. “We reinvented what a car is,” he said.

    One key development was creating a suspension system that fits entirely inside the wheels, instead of under the car, significantly cutting weight and taking up much less space, and allowing a flat floor by getting rid of the strut tower. “This suspension, we believe, will find its way into a number of production cars in the near future,” Kuttner said.

    Kuttner also thinks plastics has a good future, not just from lightweighting, but because of social changes like car-sharing services in big cities.

    “Plastic cars are going to become more popular, because people are going to give up the detail of the great personal palace of a car, to something that's easy and quick and convenient that you can use for a few hours and hand back,” Kuttner said. “Then somebody has to clean it, so plastics are definitely going to start to take over there because they can be designed to be more friendly for things like that.”

    Kuttner, a real estate developer and race car enthusiast, said big car corporations keep their engineers in a straightjacket when it comes to radical changes needed to meet the corporate average fuel economy — or CAFÉ — standards.

    “You have to be allowed to be free. And there are a lot of great engineers out there,” he said. “I think this shift will destroy some companies, and it will be also a great opportunity for the industry, a great opportunity of careers. It's the great opportunity for plastics.”

    Kuttner acknowledged his team's roots in racing, where bigger and faster is better.

    “But we're also humans. I actually believe that a consumer is perfectly happy to accept something slightly less than a Class A finish, if the price is right, and the service is right, and everything else works. And at that point, plastics are really special, and the tipping point is there.”

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    logo-pn-color
    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber & Plastics News
    • Urethanes Technology
    • Plastics News China
    • European Rubber Journal
    • Tire Business
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2021. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • What Keeps You Up At Night
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
        • Polymer Points Live
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • FYI Charts
        • Current FYI
      • LSR World
      • Multimedia
        • Videos
        • Galleries
        • Podcasts
      • NPE2021
      • K Show
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • Special Reports
        • CEO Issue
        • Best Places to Work
        • Processor of the Year
        • Rising Stars
        • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • Heavy Metal
      • One Good Resin
      • BRICS and Plastics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Plastics in Healthcare
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
      • Industry Events
      • Livestreams/Webinars
      • Ask the Expert
      • Polymer Points Live
      • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
      • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
      • Plastics in Healthcare Library
      • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Resin Prices
      • All Resins
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Rankings
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Data Store
    • Directory
    • More+
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified
      • Digital Edition
      • Newsletters
      • Sponsored Content
      • Processor of the Year submissions
      • White Papers