Lightweighting in the automotive industry

Lightweighting has been identified as a promising concept to reduce the fuel consumption of cars and thus contribute to the reduction of emissions in the automotive industry by replacing certain parts of a car with composite materials, such as carbon fibre reinforced plastics, which are lighter than traditionally used materials. However, although composites have properties such as strength and stiffness that make them ideal replacements, they are difficult to recycle.

Nº 37


some attempts made
past case
Region-1
Region-2
Region-3
Region-4
ongoing case
no attempts made

Lightweighting in the automotive industry

Lightweighting has been identified as a promising concept to reduce the fuel consumption of cars and thus contribute to the reduction of emissions in the automotive industry by replacing certain parts of a car with composite materials, such as carbon fibre reinforced plastics, which are lighter than traditionally used materials. However, although composites have properties such as strength and stiffness that make them ideal replacements, they are difficult to recycle.

In Germany, lightweighting is identified as a key enabling technology for various sectors, including automotive, transport, aerospace and construction. It is perceived as an important development to reduce costs and provide favourable properties in the materials of choice. There are currently over a thousand lightweighting projects listed in the German government’s funding catalogue. It has been recognised that in order to introduce a circular economy approach to lightweighting, knowledge of lightweighting methods and materials needs to be integrated into education and training.

Research & development to increase recycling of composite materials 

BMWK – Federal Ministry for Economics Affairs and Climate Action. (n.d.). Lightweighting. Available at https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/EN/Dossier/lightweighting.html.

Borjan, D., Knez, Ž., & Knez, M. (2021). Recycling of carbon fiber-reinforced composites—Difficulties and future perspectives. Materials, 14(15), 4191. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14154191

Ahmad, H., Markina, A. A., Porotnikov, M. V., & Ahmad, F. (2020, November). A review of carbon fiber materials in automotive industry. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 971, No. 3, p. 032011). IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/971/3/032011  

Gonçalves, M., Monteiro, H., & Iten, M. (2022). Life Cycle Assessment studies on lightweight materials for automotive applications – An overview. Energy Reports, 8, 338–345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2022.01.067