Forvia uses bio-based plastics, recycled PET in more sustainable headlamp

A new headlamp concept by French supplier Forvia promises a 60 percent weight savings from its traditional lights while reducing carbon emissions over its life by more than two-thirds by using bio-based and recycled plastics.

The headlamp uses fewer parts than a traditional headlight by eliminating components that have been included in fixtures of the past purely for aesthetic purposes. The headlamp weighs around 4.5 pounds, vs. a typical model today might weigh around 11 pounds. That offers customers some important weight savings as they look to make new vehicles lighter and more efficient, said Antonio Pantoja, Forvia's head of car body lighting in the Americas.

"Using fewer components will bring down costs and offset the whole manufacturing process, not only for us but for our suppliers," Pantoja told Automotive News, a sister paper of Plastics News. "We're looking for ways we can use fewer components to produce the same high-performance product."

The optical lens Forvia incorporated is significantly lighter than those used in conventional lights. A bulky lens has been replaced by one that is only about 0.1 inches thick, helping to reduce weight without sacrificing performance, Pantoja said.

He also pointed to the elimination of a plastic component that typically surrounds the bracket holding the headlight in place on a vehicle. That part exists only for aesthetic purposes, Pantoja said, so the new headlamp was designed to get rid of it.

The new headlamp design comes as Forvia's automaker customers look to make their vehicles lighter for efficiency purposes. But the design also helps both Forvia and its automaker customers work toward carbon emissions targets across their supply chains.

The headlamp achieves that by speeding up the manufacturing process, thanks to fewer parts, and also by delivering a lamp with components that are easier to replace and repair, helping to extend the life of the part and making it more recyclable.

The headlamp is constructed primarily out of bio-based plastics or recycled PET from bottles. The decision to do that "stems from the goal of Forvia of reaching net zero [carbon emissions] by 2045," Pantoja said. "We want to use less, use better and use longer."

The concept made its debut at CES in January and has received positive reviews from automakers, he said. While it remains to be seen how automakers might want to implement the concepts in the headlamp into production models, he said the concept has sparked creative discussions on how to do so.

"We're all working toward a similar goal," Pantoja said. "They have similar pressures as us. By discussing this and having these dialogues together, it opens up a lot of possibilities."

Forvia, headquartered in Nanterre, France, ranks No. 8 on the Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers, with worldwide sales to automakers of $26.8 billion in 2022.