Editorial: Automotive composites based on carbon fibre technical textiles: who will be next to make the commitment after BMW?

Despite rapid growth in recent years, carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRPs) account for only a small proportion of the total volume of materials used in automotive manufacturing. A key stumbling block in the adoption of CFRPs is price but prices are likely to fall as capacity increases and the potential for growth in the use of CFRPs is huge. A number of alliances between automotive companies and carbon fibre suppliers have been announced in recent years and these alliances are poised to drive the use of CFRPs in vehicles for the mass market. BMW, the pioneer in this field, began volume production of CFRPs in 2003. In 2009 it formed a joint venture with SGL Group, called SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers (ACF), to industrialise the use of carbon fibres in the automotive sector. Today ACF is making carbon fibres at its plant in Moses Lake, Washington, USA, for BMW i3 and i8 vehicles assembled in Leipzig, Germany. Several other automotive manufacturers have formed alliances with suppliers of CFRPs – including General Motors and Toho Tenax, Daimler and Toray Industries, Jaguar Land Rover and Cytec, and Ford, DowAksa and IACMI – and a number of technical developments have been achieved.

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