Automakers have long sought to tackle engine emissions and fuel economy by making lighter vehicles, exploring a wide range of materials and designs. From carbon fibre and aluminium to natural fibre-based materials and lightweight plastics, numerous options each offer specific benefits for specific applications. Generative design software, which leverages AI, promises to help engineers factor in numerous variables to create lighter, stronger, and more sustainable vehicles.
Priorities and strategies are changing, however, with the shift to e-mobility. Electric variants are heavier than their internal combustion engine counterparts—often by a substantial percentage. For instance, the Mustang Mach-E is 1,300 lbs heavier than the traditional Mustang. Will lightweighting efforts take a back seat as the industry transitions to a battery-based propulsion system?
- Lightweighting’s role is evolving in the EV age
- Will cost challenges thwart the lightweight promise of sustainable biomaterial?
- Generative design could revolutionise lightweighting developments
- The material of choice for new mobility: does steel stand a chance?
- Truck lightweighting is deprioritised as decarbonisation arrives
- Combining bioplastics and binder jetting could signal a lightweighting step change
- EV lightweighting? It’s all in the battery chemistry
'Special report: Vehicle lightweighting' presents insight from:
- ArcelorMittal
- Bcomp
- BJS Haulage and Construct IT
- Daimler Truck
- Intelligen International
- Mayflower Consulting
- McKinsey & Company
- Novelis
- Vattenfall
- Volvo Trucks UK
- Volta Trucks
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