Ford working on mass-market carbon fiber components to save weight, improve efficiency

Carbon fiber has been in use for many years in the automotive industry in the name of performance, but Ford is trying to bring this lightweight material to the masses in the name of fuel economy. As a part of the German-funded Hightech.NRW project that began in 2010, Ford and Dow Automotive Systems have been trying to come up with a way to make carbon fiber feasible for everyday cars.

To demonstrate how important carbon fiber could be in non-performance-car applications, Ford installed a carbon fiber reinforced plastic hood on the Focus wagon shown above. Ford says carbon fiber is five times stronger than steel yet is just one-third the weight. This prototype hood weighs about half of what a conventional steel hood would weigh, and it still passes all of the safety needs required from a vehicle including dent resistance, pedestrian protection and during frontal crashes.

CFRP parts are apparently more time consuming to paint, so the project is also trying to find a faster way to finish the parts while keeping the same quality standards in place for steel components.

CFRP is an ideal material to use on hybrids and EVs, but Ford also has a plan to reduce the weight of its vehicles by about 750 pounds each by the end of the decade. Currently, resources and production methods make carbon fiber an expensive material, so the biggest test will be getting these costs down to make it economical for use in a sub-$20,000 car. There's no word how much this prototype hood cost Ford to produce, but in a day where automakers are trying to squeeze every last pound out of a car's curb weight, carbon fiber could become a very important material in future vehicles.

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/12/f...-to-save-weig/

 

Sheeding 700lbs would be amazing. Mazda is already kick starting the trend. The Mazda6 rings in a few pounds below 3000 for a midsize sedan

 

Will we pay a premium for Carbon Fiber? Probably

 

I must have missed that when reading up on the mazda6, that is an amazing accomplishment!!!

 

It's the lowest end model that weighs in below 3000 lbs. Every other spec I've seen has it around 3100 lbs. Still a really good job.

 

That's still incredibly light for a good sized family sedan.

The current issue of Car and Driver has an interesting and in depth article about carbon fiber suppliers for the auto industry. BMW and several other makes are starting to do what Carnegie did with steel 130 years ago. Vertical integration, buy up all the suppliers so it drives down the cost.

I didn't know this, but a significant part of the expense in carbon fiber body panels is that the raw materials are sourced and processed in Asia, then sent to the US where they make the carbon fiber cloth, then sent to Europe to be put in the roof of your BMW M3, M6, etc.

 

Ford currently has porkiest cars on the market, together with GM... maybe they should try high tensile steel and aluminium, before 2020.