What is automotive lightweighting?

Lightweighting of automobiles is to reduce the overall mass of automobiles as much as possible under the premise of ensuring the strength and safety performance of automobiles. So as to improve the dynamics of the car, reduce fuel consumption, reduce exhaust pollution.
And the biggest advantage of applying plastics to automotive materials is to reduce the weight of the car body.

How much gas can I save by reducing the weight of my car?

Theoretically, gas mileage is related to the weight of the car. The heavier the car, the more resistance it has to overcome, and the higher the fuel consumption will be.

Not only that, car lightweight can also effectively reduce carbon emissions.

Statistics show that 30% of a car's energy consumption comes from the rolling resistance of the tires, and 40% from the air resistance when driving. Every 10% reduction in vehicle mass can reduce fuel consumption by 6% to 8%, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.5%, shorten braking distance by 5%, and reduce steering force by 6%. Tire rolling resistance is reduced by 20% to 30%, fuel savings of 5% to 7%, carbon dioxide emissions per 100 kilometers can be reduced by 400 grams. The use of lightweight materials to replace 10% of metal materials, the vehicle can be 5% overall weight loss.

As of the end of June this year, China's motor vehicle ownership reached 426 million, of which 328 million fuel vehicles, 16.2 million new energy vehicles, annual fuel consumption of 250 million tons.

What parts of the car use lightweight materials?

At present, the average proportion of lightweight materials in the entire automobile manufacturing is 10% to 15%. Including metal lightweight materials, such as aluminum alloys, high-strength steel and magnesium alloys, as well as non-metallic lightweight materials, such as carbon fiber composites and glass fiber reinforced plastics.

The plasticization of automotive materials is a major trend in automotive manufacturing today. Automotive modified plastics are light in quality and high in strength, only 15% to 20% of the weight of ordinary steel. It is lighter than wood, which has a great promotion effect on automobile lightweighting.

Composite materials have the advantages of high specific strength and specific modulus, low density, light weight, high strength, high safety level, etc., which are the ideal materials for automobile lightweighting. Automotive interior parts, exterior parts, structural parts and tires are the main components of lightweight material applications.

Among them, fiber-reinforced materials play an increasingly important role in "replacing steel with plastic", mainly short fiber-reinforced materials and long fiber-reinforced thermoplastic materials (LFT).

LFT has outstanding mechanical properties, the future of the car doors, roofs, seat parts, wheels and automotive peripheral structural components, will be more LFT. due to the strong plasticity and high strength of the LFT, and even the body of the future will use LFT.

Car interior                                                      Car bumper

Car body

car seat