JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #133 - March/April 2020 - 17

trends BUSlNESS

Automotive: what will be tomorrow's reality?

JAKUB RAMS,
Manager of the Energy,
Environment & Mobility team
Alcimed

T

he European Union set
a maximum target for
European car manufacturers of 95 grams of CO2
emitted per kilometre travelled by 2021 (average value
for a 1390-kilogram vehicle,
the average weight of new
vehicles put on the market).
Additionally, in mid-December 2018, the European
Parliament and Council
reached a consensus on a new
target to reduce average CO2

With increasingly stringent CO2 emission reduction targets imposed by the
European Union, manufacturers have to keep pace. The first possible solution
is to electrify the automotive fleet. The second one is to reduce the weight of
combustion vehicles to lower their emissions. Substituting metal parts with
plastic or composite parts could lead to substantial weight savings. In terms
of properties, these materials reach the same level of performance as metals,
but then why are our vehicles still mainly made of metal? Alcimed, a consulting
company that specializes in innovation and new market development, provides
an overview of the use of composite materials in the automotive industry and
the obstacles to their widespread use.

emissions by 15% by 2025
and by 37.5% by 2030 compared to the results achieved
in 2021. However, the situation remains very disparate
between manufacturers, as
highlighted in the latest report
of the International Council
on Clean Transportation
(ICCT). While Toyota is
the manufacturer closest to
its target for 2021 (with a
further 9-gram reduction still
to be achieved), others still
have significant work ahead
of them.

Composite material vehicle developed by the start-up Gazelle Tech

Manufacturers such as Fiat,
Chrysler, Hyundai, Ford,
Volkswagen and Daimler
remain more than 25 grams
away from their targets for
2021, which seems increasingly difficult to achieve.
A roadmap for
reducing CO2 emissions
Electrifying the automotive
fleet remains a solution, but
the low penetration rate of
electric vehicles will not
allow manufacturers to reach
their 2030 target. In fact, it is
expected that 75% of the cars
sold that same year will still
be petrol or diesel vehicles.
However, manufacturers can
use several levers to achieve
the objective of reducing
emissions. The most effective
way would be to focus on
the engines, for example by
reducing the displacement.
However, several experts
agree that a performance plateau would be reached. The
second lever is to reduce the
weight of vehicles, for which

N°133 March - April 2020

the substitution of metal
parts with plastics seems to
be a promising solution.
More and more
plastics in vehicles
The plastics market in the
automotive sector was
estimated at approximately
€25 billion in 2016 for 10
million tons. Its growth by
2025 is expected to be about
10% per year. This evolution
is not only driven by the
increase in vehicle sales,
estimated at 2% annually;
it is also the result of the
integration of plastics in
many applications previously
reserved for metal.
Still today, metal parts account for 80% of a vehicle's
weight. Some experts estimate
that the use of plastics for the
vehicle structure would allow
substantial weight savings, up
to more than 200 kilograms
corresponding to a reduction
in CO2 emissions of about 12
grams.
For the time being, 50% of
the plastics in vehicles are

/ jec composites magazine

17
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #133 - March/April 2020

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