JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #107 - August/September 2016 - 22

BUSINESS outlook
$6.3 billion with an average
CAGR of 17.5% until 2021.
Future growth in global carbon composites will mainly
be due to a strong demand
in luxury cars, race cars, and
high-performance cars.
Automotive end users are
looking for better value for
their money, superior quality
and increased safety. In turn,
the composites industry is
shifting gears and investing
in new R&D initiatives, and
attempting to capture business and applications that
were previously considered
out of reach - such as body
frames and panels - in comparison to traditional materials such as aluminium and
steel. When Lucintel spoke
to automotive OEMs about
the opportunities for increased applications of carbon-fibre parts, they all said
carbon fibre was one of the
most promising weight-saving materials, but also noted
there were many challenges to adopting it for use in
high-volume,
commercial
automobiles.

Key challenges and
opportunities
To enhance mainstream automotive applications and
secure future growth and
profitability, the carbon
composites industry needs
to address and overcome five
key challenges.
Cost reduction
Reducing the price of carbon
fibre and carbon composite
parts is essential in order
to compete with steel and
aluminium parts. The high
price of carbon fibre restricts
the potential leverage of the
materials' lighter weight in
many applications. In order

22

Fig. 1: Carbon fibre potential in the automotive industry in different price scenario
Tab. 1: Automotive classification by type of vehicle

Super cars
>$200,000 per car

Super luxury cars
>$100,000 per car

Luxury cars
>$40,000 per car

Regular cars
<$40,000 per car

Lexus LFA
Aston Martin Vanquish
McLaren P1
McLaren 650S
McLaren MP412C
Lamborghini Aventador
Lamborghini Veneno
Bentley Mulsanne
Ferrari FF
Ferrari F12 Berlinetta
Koenigsegg
Bugatti Veyron
Rolls Royce

BMW M6
Mercedes-Benz CL-Class
Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Mercedes-Benz SL-Class
Porsche 911 & 918
Audi R8
Maserati Ghibli
Maserati Granturismo
SRT Viper
Corvette ZR1 (2013)
Acura NSX

Acura
BMW X3, X5, X6
Lexus GS 350
Mercedes-Benz C-Class
Mercedes-Benz M-Class
Porsche Boxster
Cadillac
BMW i3 & i8
Lincoln MKS
Corvette Z06
Corvette Convertible
Shelby GT500
Audi A6

Ford Fiesta
Ford Focus
Ford Fusion
Ford Taurus
Chevy Spark
Chevy Sonic
Chevy Impala
Chevy Camaro
Nissan Altima
Mitsubishi Eclipse
Hyundai Elantra
Subaru Tribeca

to compete for these applications, carbon fibre needs
to be within the range of
$5-6 per pound, according
to the automotive OEMs
interviewed by Lucintel;
however, the current price is
approximately $8 to $15 per
pound. There is also greater
emphasis on reducing part
fabrication costs through
automation, simulation, and
rapid cycle times. As per Lucintel market research, if the
price of carbon fibre goes
down by 50% to about $5 per
pound, then the potential of
carbon fibre would increase

from 143 million pounds
to 558 million pounds in
2025, as shown in Figure 1.
According to OEMs, if the
price of carbon goes down
by 50%, then they would be
much more willing to use
carbon fibre in many more
applications compared to
some selected applications.
For the above analysis, Lucintel looked into various
automotive platforms from
regular cars to super-cars,
as shown in Table 1. Today,
all super-cars include carbon composite applications,

jec composites magazine / No107 August - September 2016

whereas regular cars have
limited to no carbon fibre
applications.
Transformative technology
There is a greater need for
fast, more mature composite
technologies, ideally with
one to two minute cycle time
for mass volume markets.
Most of the current carbon
composite part manufacturing processes are slow and
take more than 10 minutes to
make the part. Automation
and development of suitable
material systems and technologies are required to gain
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #107 - August/September 2016
