Trimming fat new frontier for automakers

Carmakers strive not only to meet NHTSA’s federal crash test requirements but also to earn a top score on the tougher Insurance Institute for Highway Safety offset frontal crash test. Both groups have added tests for side impact protection and rear-end collisions, and manufacturers have braced, reinforced and armored their cars in response.

The result is a wave of porky, pavement-crushing steamrollers that are harder to accelerate, turn and stop. That in turn necessitates bigger engines, brakes and tires, which add still more weight. And the really dangerous part is that bigger cars strike other vehicles harder in a  crash, inflicting more damage.

What’s more, heavier cars have a harder time passing crash tests and protecting occupants in crashes because all of that weight plowing ahead increases the amount of energy the crush space at the front of the car must absorb on impact.

Light, strong materials like carbon fiber provide impact protection without adding much mass. The material is already prohibitively expensive, and now Boeing is ravenously consuming the world’s supply of it to build its 787 Dreamliners, reports Brylawski.

The need for high-strength steel is making that critical commodity hard to get too, according to Nissan’s Lane. But these are short-term obstacles that will be overcome, he insists.

“You will see vehicles that weigh less than their predecessors,” Lane pledged. Nissan plans to use steel and aluminum to trim weight in coming years. Even carbon fiber is a possibility, he added.

Today, carbon fiber is not suitable for mass production because it must be baked in an oven to harden. But thermoplastic resins would let manufacturers form the parts hot so they harden as  they cool, making mass production practical, said Brylawski.

The possibility of such a high-tech “gastrobypass” for cars is still more than a decade away, he acknowledged, but it will happen eventually.

“Automotive scale manufacturing of carbon fiber is not an ‘if,’ but a ‘when,’” he said.

When it happens, look for dramatic changes in mass and efficiency. Meanwhile, we just have to hope that next year’s models will muster the willpower to turn away from the gadget buffet and shed those first pounds that will at least turn the weight trend in the other direction.

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