Bravo Toray & Partners!

Like our ever increasing waistlines, the average vehicle mass has increased to pathetic levels. Remind me again why single occupant/operators feel the need to convey themselves in +5,000lbs SUVs? Automotive dynosaurs!

Yet even the average car has gained almost 1,000lbs of "fat" over the years. (for illustration, compare nearly every early model car to present models)

Many will say, "Well, it's on account of all the safety regulations." Yes and no. Feature creep to move a model "upscale" has also been a factor. And don't tell me light vehicles cannot be engineered for safety.

If all passenger vehicels were restriceted to a weight limit, then all vehicles could be designed to one safety standard. However, the presence of +5000 lbs passenger vehicles on our roads necessitates bigger heavier vehicles. It's the automotive equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction.

We need to work smarter not harder. If we keep using steel as the underlying material for vehicles then, yes, progress in weight reduction will not be forthcoming. Chapman's "adding lightness" is a wonderful mantra that autmobile manufacturers need to embrace to improve fuel efficiency and collective safety.

A lighter chasis means smaller dynamic components (brakes, suspension, drivetrain, wheels) are required. Small, direct injection turbocharged 4 cyl engines (read: fuel effcient) could replace large displacement +6 cyl engines. It's a synergistic effect.

Bottom line, automobile manufacturers, please apply just a few of the lessons learned 15 years ago during PNGV to today's vehicles!

DieselHybrid:
Well said! It's too bad we can't get the information on GCC out to more of the public. I encourage everyone who reads or comments here to give out the website url every chance they get. I have referenced it several times in my local newspaper comments. A well-informed populace is a public that can plan and do great things, regardless of the foggy PR presented by Big Auto and Big Oil.

BTW, From your posts I see you favor Diesel usage. And, please know that what you have written here applies to BEVs and PHEVs as well. I see diesel ICEs, Hydrogen ICEs, engine stop and go, Atkins cycle ICEs, HEVs, etc., as near future solutions to the far future solutions of FCEVs and long range, quick charge BEVs, with all fuel generated by sun energies.

Lad:

Being in the US military I am in favor of any sustainable source of energy and/or technology that reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

Diesel-electric hybrids (small 3-4 cyl TDI gensets with light advanced batteries + ultracapacitors) seem to be the lowest hanging fruit in achieving this end.

After all, we taxpayers foot +$2 billion for Partnership for Next Generation Vehicle: PNGV (whose goal was to create 80mpg family-sized vehicle.)

All 3 Detroit automakers independently arrived at the same solution: lightened vehicles driven by diesel-electric hybrid powertrains.

Thus far, not a single US automaker has accomplished anything with the lessons learned from PNGV. Meanwhile, Toyota and Honda have eaten our lunch with their gasoline-electric hybrid offerings.

Sadly, PNGV seems to have amounted to nothing more than very expensive corporate welfare.

I would not say welfare, but a fair chance at a new start that the automakers squandered.

As for carbon fiber, the Rocky Mountain Institute outlined this plan years ago in their book the Oil Endgame (www.rmi.org)

Later they can to the conclusion that it would be a while before it was cost effective, but they always backed the lighter and stronger cars it could make.

There's something really wrong if we can only talk about serious prospects for mainstream cars "soon" for luxury cars and "eventually" at the same price point as steel, because there's a key price point in between that should be the dramatic inflection point where carbon would take off. You don't have to be as cheap as steel for carbon composite to give you a better overall value in the big picture. First, there are weight spirals. Second, that 5% savings on fuel consumption adds up to a lot over 20 years and also represents 5% savings on air pollution, engine and tire and brake wear, noise, and hazard to others on the road in big cars. It can give the civilized world more ability to tell the oil exporters we can take it or leave it. It will make the cars stiffer, which will make people feel less compelled to push for weight as a safety feature. It eliminates rust, enabling cars which are very long-lasting, worth maintaining, and aesthetically durable. It has no resource constraints which pit countries against each other. It makes it easier to find adequate an advanced, benign drive train that could be anything from a diesel with advanced aftertreatment to a full electric (ask Tesla).

Enough advantages in total that the development should receive public support. And we should be looking for average cars, for owners who drive a lot, to be made of graphite (plus some aluminum, etc.) once the premium has been brought down to a "mainstream worthwhile crossover" that might be as much as $3K or so. Once we're ready for that, and once we work out the repairability issues, King Steel's days are numbered. It especially will be for the larger vehicles, keeping them from being threateningly overweight, if public policy tilts in the direction of fairness with the next administration.

I'm not sure the US automakers squandered the opportunity.  They may have given it up at gunpoint (think of whose initiative quashed the PNGV, what they've been promoting instead, and how low they've gone).

Throughout the last 60+ years, US automakers have falsely convinced us that 'Bigger & Heavier is Better & Safer'

Did the Oil Industry help (directly or indirectly) with this wide spread brain wash? Most probably.

We were encouraged to keep away from smaller, lighter more efficient vehicles from Japan, Korea and Europe.

Fortunatley, for the last 20 years many of us questioned the local propaganda and purchased more and more better built, smaller, safer, more efficient vehicles from Asia and Europe. Number one builder shifted from GM to Toyota.

The long term acquired culture in our Big-3 inner circles is engrained so deeply that changes in their past and current propaganda (PR) don't come easy.

Most Big-3 smaller, lighter cars are not built by them. They don't know how to build them economically.

That being said, we should not expect a sudden change of heart from our Big-3. Future smaller, lighter more efficient cars will not come from USA/CANADA but from Asia and Europe.

Years from now, when the local market is flooded with lighter, better imports; our Big-3 may wake up, if they are still around or have not already moved to countries where small good cars can be built economically.

Is saving 150Kg anything to write home about? Amory Lovins spun off a company that does thermoplastic and carbon fiber, and they were shooting for more than just the frame to be Carbon Fiber.

The thing that has always bothered me about the lack of uptake on Carbon Fiber for cars is that Detroit has always been willing to spend $100 million on an assembly line that could stamp out bumpers and other car parts for pennies each. Now, when we really need them to apply the same far-sighted investment to dramatically reduce weight...they whine about costs per unit. Besides, cars that are 50%+ carbon fiber should actually be safer than steel cars at most speeds.