Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Rubber News
Subscribe
  • Sign Up Free
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • Digital Edition
    • End Markets
    • Special Reports
    • Newsletters
    • Resin pricing news
    • Videos
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • K Show
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Processor of the Year
    • Best Places to Work
    • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Rising Stars
    • Diversity
    • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • One Good Resin
    • Pellets and Politics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • From Pillar to Post
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Fake Plastic Trees
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
  • Events
    • K Show Livestream
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Editorial Livestreams
    • Ask the Expert
    • Plastics News Events Library
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Numbers that Matter Live
    • Plastics in Politics Live
    • Sustainable Plastics Live
    • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
  • Rankings & Data
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Directory
  • Resin Prices
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Custom
    • Sponsored Content
    • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
    • Conair Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Classifieds
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
April 15, 2019 02:00 AM

Experts: Lots of opportunity available in ​auto market

Audrey LaForest
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print
    Audrey LaForest
    "I am a believer that the end game is carbon fiber composites," Alan Taub said during his keynote address. Taub is a professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan.

    Detroit —​ Opportunities for new materials and processes in the automotive sector are abundant, as automakers and suppliers increasingly feel the pressure to reduce weight and lower costs.

    But reaching those goals will require a multitude of approaches such as learning from previous strategies, pursuing multimaterial applications and ongoing collaboration among the OEMs, material suppliers and parts makers, according to three speakers at Antec.

    "If you don't look where you've been, you don't know where you're going. And for a long time, nobody in the industry cared about weight," Alan Taub, a professor of materials science and engineering as well as mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, told conference attendees.

    Taub is also a senior technical adviser at LIFT (Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow), a public-private partnership focused on the development of advanced lightweight materials and manufacturing methods. He provided a historical overview of the auto industry's use of materials such as steel, wood, aluminum, plastics and others, during a March 18 keynote address.

    For decades, the name of the game was "how fast you could accelerate and how beautiful the car looked," Taub said. "Nobody talked about sustainability. Nobody talked about environmental impact."

    But the name of the game has changed.

    "We have entered an era where true weight reductions are occurring," he said.

    The majority of fuel economy gains come from improved engine and transmission performance as well as the introduction of partial and full electrification, but Taub said about 15 percent comes from weight reduction.

    "A good rule of thumb? If I decrease the weight of a car by 10 percent, I can get a 6 percent fuel economy improvement," said Taub, adding that the first step for achieving weight reduction is improving design.

    This includes not only deploying better mechanical design, but also swapping materials, which have improved over the years in terms of their lightweight attributes.

    Multimaterial approach

    The auto industry has gradually migrated from the idea of a single-material intensive vehicle to now using the right material, produced the right way and put in the right part of the vehicle, Taub said.

    "Our designers know how to do that," he said. "And our plant managers are no longer afraid of doing that."

    High-strength steel, for example, used to be limited to a 15 percent weight reduction but today can achieve as much as 25 percent, according to Taub, who used low-carbon steel as the baseline. Glass fiber-reinforced composites are in the range of 30 percent.

    Taub also had some stark words for those working in plastics, as Ford's aluminum-bodied F-150 pickup truck rides the wave of a record-setting sales year in 2018: "I hate to put it this way, but this is your competition and, so far, it is still winning that race," he said of aluminum.

    Carbon fiber-reinforced composites are the material that can give the auto industry its lowest weight vehicle, Taub said, but tough barriers such as cost and the high-energy intensive nature of its manufacturing process remain.

    "Where are we?" he asked. "The incumbent material folks want to keep their share of the market."

    Audrey LaForest

    Materials expert Rose Ryntz said reducing the weight of vehicles is "an expectation now."

    Future forward

    Rose Ryntz, president of Ryntz & Associates LLC, said weight reduction and lightweighting have been around for a long time in the automotive industry.

    "For the past 10 years, that's been a mandate. It's an expectation now," she said. "And most OEMs do not pay for weight reduction."

    If the average curb weight of a vehicle is roughly 3,700 pounds, Ryntz said, in order to meet 2025 standards of 54.5 mpg, the weight would have to be reduced in the vehicle by another 560 or so pounds.

    "That can't be done all in plastics," she said.

    Further weight reductions will be achieved through various materials, including the use of metal alloys on aluminum and high-strength steel, in conjunction with plastics.

    Ryntz, who resigned last year as vice president of advanced development and material engineering at International Automotive Components Group, a global supplier of instrument panels, center consoles and door trims, spoke on the progression of polypropylene and thermoplastic polyolefins (TPO) in interior and exterior applications.

    "If I look at the rearview mirror of where we've been, we've had polycarbonate-type substrates. We've gone to TPO materials — that's still in the sideview mirror," she said. "Where are we going? That mirror will be gone. We're going to more crafted materials, talking about multilayer structures, different adhesives, different types of materials all the way from PVCs to TPOs to natural leather."

    At Magna Exteriors, a division of global automotive supplier Magna International Inc., collaboration among OEMs, material suppliers and parts makers has supported several lightweight developments such as reducing the density in wall stocks on fascias and exterior trim components.

    But Mark Pilette, global product line director for exterior trim, said that collaboration process needs to continue.

    "We need to push the material needle even further," he said during a session on driving innovation and material collaboration for exterior parts.

    A big focus at Magna has been on drag reduction and improving the range of electrified vehicles, especially as consumers steer their vehicle preferences toward SUVs and CUVs. In fact, more than half of vehicles produced today, he said, contain a hatch or a rear liftgate closure.

    "This trend with CUVs and SUVs offers an increasing opportunity for reducing weight at the rare of the vehicle," Pilette said. "And liftgates, which once were metallic intensive, are now focusing on alternate material solutions to reduce that mass."

    Magna's thermoplastic liftgates are already outfitted on several vehicles on the road today, including the 2019 Jeep Cherokee. Pilette said the company wants to replace even more body panels, including doors and hoods, with TPO or other lightweight materials.

    "Cars will look different, but they still need to have beautiful shapes and finishes, and advanced plastics will help us get there," he said.

    RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
    Numbers That Matter Live — sign up for the next live
    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]

    Most Popular
    1
    ExxonMobil weighing options for more chemical recycling capacity
    2
    Wilbert Plastic Services adjusts to changes with new owner, leadership
    3
    PepsiCo on a ‘multiyear journey' toward bioplastics
    4
    After years of challenges, can secondary sortation take off?
    5
    Biden sets US goal to replace 90% of plastics with biomaterials
    SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTERS
    EMAIL ADDRESS

    Please enter a valid email address.

    Please enter your email address.

    Please verify captcha.

    Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

    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.

    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 News
    • Tire Business
    • Urethanes Technology
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2023. 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
        • K Show
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
      • Digital Edition
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • Special Reports
        • Processor of the Year
        • Best Places to Work
        • Women Breaking the Mold
        • Rising Stars
        • Diversity
        • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
      • Newsletters
      • Resin pricing news
      • Videos
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • One Good Resin
      • Pellets and Politics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • From Pillar to Post
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
      • Fake Plastic Trees
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • K Show Livestream
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Injection Molding & Design Expo
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
      • Industry Events
      • Injection Molding & Design Expo
      • Livestreams/Webinars
        • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
      • Editorial Livestreams
        • Polymer Points Live
        • Numbers that Matter Live
        • Plastics in Politics Live
        • Sustainable Plastics Live
      • Ask the Expert
      • Plastics News Events Library
        • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
        • Plastics in Healthcare Library
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
      • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Rankings & Data
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Directory
    • Resin Prices
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Custom
      • Sponsored Content
      • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
      • Conair Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified