Viewpoint: Steve Haywood

摘要

The industry has evolved significantly over the past decade, with vehicles being developed from a mixture of materials to meet stringent CO_2 targets, safety legislation, and an increase in electrification.The evolution has forced the industry to focus more on lightweighting as an important feature of vehicle design and engineering. In the automotive sector the share of lightweight materials used in production is expected to more than double within 20 years. There are three key trends: non-premium markets are increasingly using advanced/ ultra-high strength steels with aluminium closures; the premium mixed market is using intensive materials such as carbon fibre mixed with aluminium; while sports cars are being developed solely from carbon fibre.These trends are important to the future viability of the industry.