Everyone in the auto industry is well aware that increased use of carbon fiber in automotive applications can bring numerous benefits in terms of improving fuel efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. But, the fact that it’s a very expensive material makes it unsuitable for use in large-scale automotive production, which is why it has only been used in luxury vehicles or sports cars so far. A new report from Lux Research, though, states that carbon-fiber reinforced plastic could go mainstream by 2025, much sooner than earlier predictions.
According to Lux Research, carbon fiber is expected to gain widespread adoption in the auto industry in 10 years, thanks to fast technology development which is reducing the costs associated with carbon-fiber production costs. The report says that the U.S. market for carbon fiber will grow to $6 billion in 2020, about double Lux Research’s previous estimates.
“Current trends strongly indicate significant mainstream automotive adoption of CFRPs in the mid-2020s, and companies throughout the value chain must position themselves to take advantage of the coming shifts, says Anthony Vicari, the author of the report.
In the report, Lux Research notes several factors that will help make carbon fiber mainstream and what challenges need to be overcome for a faster adoption in the auto industry. Researchers claim that growing partnerships accelerate development, saying that the number of partnerships between automakers or Tier-1 suppliers and carbon fiber manufacturers has almost doubled and reached 11 since 2012.
Furthermore, they say that based on the fact that there was a major carbon-fiber patent uptick in 2007, it could be expected that this lightweight material will go mainstream in the mid-2020s.
As far as the challenges are concerned, the report says that manufacturing costs have to be further reduced, before it can be used for large-scale production of vehicle parts. Currently, the price for a kilogram carbon fiber is $28, which is just 22% of the total costs of a carbon-fiber reinforced plastic part. Researchers say that labor, energy and processing costs need to be cut so that carbon fiber can become an affordable material for automotive production.
Carbon fiber is a lightweight material that can help reduce fuel consumption drastically, given that vehicle weight is one of the factors that impact a car’s fuel efficiency. Extensive use of carbon fiber in cars can reduce the overall weight of most vehicles by anywhere between 60 and 70 percent, resulting in a 30% improvement in fuel economy and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20%.
Currently, BMW is one of the few automakers that offer vehicles made largely out of carbon fiber. The all-electric i3 and the hybrid i8 are the only mass-production vehicles with a carbon fiber body, and Ford recently announced that it intends to build a carbon-fiber Mustang GT. But, both the i3 and the i8 come with a pretty heavy price tag, costing $41,350 and $135,700, respectively, due to the high production costs of carbon fiber, which according to Lux Research, are set to drop drastically over the next decade.