Plastic exteriors for cars of the future

Carmakers will turn increasingly to plastics for exterior body panels, according to speakers at an automotive conference in Prague.

The prediction was made despite end-of-life vehicle directives and competition from aluminium.

"The future of plastics depends on the development of new materials and their costs," said keynote speaker Michel Costes, chief executive of Mavel, a Paris-based consulting firm specialising in automotive materials analysis. "We will see more and more applications on body panels," he said. "The doors, the [bonnet], a hatchback, but not a full body made out of plastics except for some specific cars.

"The problem is the cost to obtain the class-A finish that you need for these types of parts."

Though the amount of plastics used in cars has risen as vehicles have become heavier, the proportion of plastics to the total car weight has increased only slightly.

In European passenger cars, for example, the average plastic parts content last year was an estimated 11 per cent, or 143kg. That compares with 10.6 per cent, 133kg, in 2003 and 9.3 per cent, 106kg, in 1998, according to Mavel data.

But the next generation of reinforced plastics, several of which were presented at the conference, is causing some optimism about the wider application of such products.

"I see a greater trend for using plastics for exterior body panels and really leveraging the advantages of plastic, which is design freedom and weight reduction," said Volker Kessler, industry manager for GE Plastics in Russelsheim, Germany.

"Niche cars also may be one of the major market drivers for the automotive industry, and even plastics have an advantage cost-wise in doing a small production series."

Although GE's new materials are not commercially available, "there will be applications soon" in cars that are currently being tested, Kessler said.

Other companies developing cutting-edge plastics include Germany's Dieffenbacher and France's Rhodia.

- REUTERS