Lightweight

Ford is getting religion when it comes to light-weighting its vehicles. The company has entered into a new partnership with Dow Chemical to develop carbon fiber that can be manufactured at affordable prices for high-volume applications. That, of course, is the holy grail of weight reduction, ...

Automakers are being pinched to increase safety and improve fuel efficiency, but those two goals often work against each other. That could change thanks to a material that is 99.99-percent air. Ward's Automotive reports that the California Institute of Technology, HRL Laboratories and the ...

News outlet Nikkei reports that Japan-based steelmakers and chemical firms are developing materials and components that will make vehicles significantly lighter. The reason? Putting an end to Japanese automakers procuring components from rivals overseas. These innovative lightweight materials ...

Recently, General Motors celebrated the launch of Phase 1 at its China Advanced Technical Center in Shanghai. The facility, which is adjacent to GM International Operations and GM China Headquarters, is the automaker's latest bid to grab a greater slice of the clean energy vehicle ...

With the 2025 CAFE target set at 54.5 miles per gallon, the race to develop fuel-efficient vehicles is on. According to Frost & Sullivan, this race to 54.5 will necessitate a healthy dose of lightweight automotive components. Frost & Sullivan's latest report, "Prevalent Substitution ...

Can you build a better car for $175 million? The U.S. Department of Energy hopes so, and Secretary Steven Chu has announced that the DOE will award more than that amount over the next three to five years to accelerate the development and deployment of advanced vehicle technologies. The funds will ...

Stringent fuel economy guidelines unveiled by the Obama administration in late July will force the automotive industry to explore cost-effective lightweight materials for use in future vehicles, ...

According to a study conducted by BCC Research, the global market value for lightweight materials used in the transportation industry will grow to nearly $125.3 billion in 2015, up from an estimated $95.5 billion in 2010. This growth, says BBC Research, will be driven by automakers focused on ...

In work recently published in the Journal of Applied Physics, a University of Technology Sydney (UTS) team led by professor Guoxiu Wang presented reproducible test results showing that graphene paper has the potential to revolutionize the automotive industry. How? Well, researchers at UTS have ...

Over the past 20 odd years, the curb weight of most vehicles sold in the U.S. has steadily increased. The latest trend, though, has automakers scrambling to trim excess pounds from vehicles. Why? Because every ounce removed from a vehicle not only improves its performance, but also boosts its ...