Way forward for Cars Is in Lighter Materials

Way forward for Cars Is in Lighter Materials

DEARBORN, Mich. | Roofs fabricated from carbon fiber material. Plastic windshields. Bumpers modeled out of aluminum foam.

What sounds like a knowledge experiment could be your next car.

While hybrids & electrics may grab the valeur, the real frontier in fuel economy may well be the switch to lighter materials.

Automakers have been experimenting for a long time with lightweighting, as the practice well-known, but the effort is gaining desperation with the adoption of tougher fuel useage standards. To meet the government's might be of nearly doubling average gas efficiency to 45 mpg by 2025, cars need to lose some critical pounds.

Lightweight doesn't mean less safe. Cars having new materials are already acing federal government crash tests. About 30 percent of recent vehicles already have hoods made of plastic, which can absorb the same amount of fin as steel. Some car internet businesses are teaming up with airplane makers, that are fitted with years of crash simulation data to make lightweight materials.

Ford gave a glimpse into the future last week with a lightweight Fusion family car. The prototype, developed with the United. S. Department of Energy, is about 700 pounds lighter than a typical Combination thanks to dozens of changes in parts & materials.

A new instrument panel consists of a carbon fiber & nylon composite instead of steel. The trunk window is made from the same tough but yet thin plastic that covers cellular phone.

The car contains aluminum brake rotors that are 39 percent lighter than cast aluminum ones and carbon fiber wheels which weigh 42 percent less than plastic ones.

Is helpful it's lighter, the prototype incorporate the use of the same small engine as Ford's subcompact Fiesta, which gets it is estimated that 45 mpg on the highway.

The car won't be in motorbike shops anytime soon. For one thing, it's prohibitively great priced. Its seats, for example , cost more than $73 apiece because they have carbon fiber frames. The same seats with tough steel frames are $12.

Still, prototypes are protecting Ford and other companies figure out an excellent mix of materials.

"These are the technologies that will idiot into vehicles in the next three to five a lot of years, " said Matt Zaluzec, Ford's technical leader for materials & manufacturing research.

Some vehicles have already made a lightweight addition. Land Rover's 2013 Range Rover, which went on sale last year, slipped about 700 pounds with its all-aluminum body, while the new Acura MDX shed 275 pounds thanks to grew use of high-strength steel, aluminum & magnesium.

Ford producer has unveiled an aluminum-body 2015 F-150 pickup, which shaves more than 700 pounds off the current content spun. The truck goes on sale shortly after this year.

The actual vehicle has gained more than 700 pounds over the last 12 years and now t-shirts out at just over 3, nine hundred pounds, according to government data. Stature have cars gotten bigger, but yet safety features like air bags and more crash-resistant frames also have added weight. Primary Motors' Chevrolet Volt electric family car has to drag around a 400-pound car battery.

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