The trend of reducing vehicle weight is spurred by the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) target of 54.5mpg for light-duty vehicles by 2025. The Vehicle Lightweighting track at Automotive Megatrends USA 2015 addressed how both light-duty passenger vehicle suppliers and OEMs can tackle this challenge.
Doug Richman, Vice President of Engineering at Kaiser Aluminum, says that aluminium is expected to play a key role in future vehicle lightweighting solutions. Carbon composites are also tipped to see a significant uptake in future, but one of the challenges in bringing these materials to new cars globally is harvesting the raw materials in the first place.
A matter of harvesting
Speaking at the event, Greg Kolwich, Manager, Production Development at FEV, posed the question: “How do we harvest these materials from the ground at a safer pace to allow us to lightweight.”
The hurdle is getting the infrastructure set so that these materials can be “taken out of the ground quicker,” he says. Kolwich sees this entailing the development of manufacturing processes and equipment that can more readily convert materials such as aluminium and magnesium into “useful automotive components. These materials are there, and we’ve proven that we can use them to lightweight vehicles.”
Kolwich added that contrary to popular belief within the industry, magnesium is plentiful, but the issue is harvesting the raw material while remaining cost effective and “not destroying the environment.”
China currently produces 42% of the world’s aluminium and 75% of its magnesium. However, “the US government doesn’t allow them to ship that magnesium directly in to the US and use it as an alternative lightweighting material,” he explained, suggesting that this poses an issue to global suppliers and OEMs that “want to produce similar parts globally.”
Investment needed
Manufacturing infrastructure needs to be developed at “the very highest stages,” but Kolwich admits that for many of the new materials being used for vehicle lightweighting, there is a significant cost impact for suppliers. “The value chain of carbon fibre is long and in depth, and very expensive,” he said. From the initial crude oil stage through to the development of carbon fibre laminates and final joining of parts, each individual plant “may be a US$100m investment,” he observed.
If the industry is to continue lightweighting efforts and meet the 2025 CAFE targets, vehicles need to be lighter. Materials such as aluminium, carbon fibre, and magnesium are all highlighted as viable lightweighting solutions, and each comes with its own corresponding issue. Carbon fibre is deemed too expensive for volume segments, suppliers are not confident with the characteristics of aluminium, and magnesium is difficult to source.
The underlying issue for suppliers and OEMs will be securing the quantity of these materials needed to supply the increasing number of cars that need to lose weight.
Freddie Holmes
