Automotive Composite: Transforming the Automotive Industry along with Aerospace Applications

The market for automotive composite is growing rapidly as it produces robust yet lighter auto components that reduce the total weight of cars. These materials enables car manufacturers to improve cars performance by increasing the fuel efficiency. This demonstrates that the development and use of automotive composite is in an appropriate manner, can also benefit companies, drivers, and the environment at once.

According to a research report published by Future Market Insights, the worldwide market for automotive composite is projected to account for US$ 7,231.7 Mn by the end of 2018 and it is supposed to increase at a CAGR of 5.4% during the assessment period i.e. 2018-2028. This market is estimated to reach a market value of approx. US$ 12,201.5 Mn by the end of forecast period. Automotive production is foreseen to increase with a diffident CAGR of about 3%-3.5% during the assessment period, thereby subsequently leading to growth of automotive composite market.

The Benefits of Automotive Composite

In manufacturing industry, automotive composite materials have big advantages as compared to steel, which indirectly benefits the car makers. Automotive composite are being considered to make more fuel efficient, safer and lighter vehicles. Automotive composite are composed of a high-performance fiber, therefore when these composites are brought together they provide enhanced properties as compared to the individual materials. Carbon-fiber automotive composite are one-fifth times lighter than steel, but are as good as steel in terms of strength and stiffness. These composites can considerably increase fuel economy of vehicle by reducing the weight of vehicle by as much as 60 percent.

Automotive composite materials have exceptional energy-absorbing capability per mass and with these materials, higher strength as well as stiffness is obtained. The reason why steel is the material choice of today is because it is strong and inexpensive. But automotive composite can also be designed to be robust and light weight to provide better fuel efficiency and safety. The strength and stiffness are the two major factors which is why automotive composite are currently used in aerospace applications.

Lowering the Costs for Automotive Composite

Affordability being an important aspect in vehicle manufacturing, includes factoring in the prices associated with the complete life-cycle of a car. The major problem with today’s automotive composite is that they have been especially advanced for aerospace applications where price is not as critical.

Carbon fiber automotive composite are becoming modest and cost effective as compared to metals. At the present time, carbon fiber automotive components are expensive compared to components of metal. A lot of advances in manufacturing technologies, raw materials, and assembly techniques, are directly influencing the cost of automotive composite, design and development. While the advanced technology will help in reducing the prices of composites, the demand for automotive composite will rise greatly in coming years. With reducing the engineering the cycle time, automotive composite designs, analysis, and manufacturing tools will also help to reduce the cost and increase the quality of parts being manufactured.