Automotive Plastics 2008 – The Plastic Revolution November 10, 2008

Building the perfect automobile is every design engineer's dream. But to make this a reality, every part has to perform. No compromises. No failures. That's where the plastics in the automotive industry can make the difference.

Worldwide, plastic is rapidly replacing steel as a preferred material for making vehicle components but the Indian automotive industry is yet to catch up with the trend.

Plastic provides lightweight, versatile designs in electrical, electronic, and lighting applications, further enhancing new styling opportunities. Versatility is core to plastics' beauty, allowing for efficient design changes in single piece or modular components, reducing manufacturing costs and enhancing vehicle affordability.

Though there is no major cost advantage, design flexibility, emission reduction and safety attract OEMs

The Asian market holds tremendous potential growth in automobile production. This further drives the growth and demand for light-weight and environmental-friendly plastics

There is a lot of room for replacing metal with plastics in automotives. A lot of components are still made of steel. In Europe, roughly 20 per cent of the weight of a car is engineering plastic, while in India it is just 10 per cent

The increased use of plastic for the weight reduction is a global trend. If 10 per cent weight is reduced, 25 kg of CO2 emission will be reduced in the lifetime of a car.

And hence we need to have a platform to promote these kind of communications between the vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, auto parts manufactures, IT, plastics manufacturers and the researchers from R&D institutions and industry associations to discuss the largest potential market in the world, as well as how to improve the technologies, decrease the costs and adopt new materials so as to comply with the requirements on light weight, environment protection and energy-saving.

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