The European Market for Plastics Automotive Components
Represents and promotes the interests of the Plastics Converters of the Automotive and Transport Industry towards their customers and the European Institutions, in cooperation with the horizontal functions of EuPC.
As the old Millennium ended, sales of vehicles in Western Europe reached an all-time high of 15 million units. The use of plastics in automobiles during the past century has been large - in fact, historically one might say there have been plastics in automobiles almost as long as there have been plastics.
The great revolution began with the development of thermoplastics on a large scale, during the 1950s, but it received its largest impetus with the development of engineering thermoplastics, starting with ABS and going on to polyamide and polyacetal and polycarbonate. A significant development in materials came with the technological ``leap`` from blending of different plastics to alloying new materials with useful combinations of plastics, of which the first was probably polystyrene-modified polyphenylene oxide.
Since those beginnings, the use of plastics in automotive components has undergone enormous growth - particularly during the last 20 years - from a few kg per car to roughly 105 kg per average automobile built in the year 2000.
During this period, the advantages of using plastics have changed. Originally, plastics were specified because they offered good mechanical properties combined with excellent appearance, including the possibility of self-colouring.
As the automotive industry has developed - and particularly under the legislative pressures that have been imposed on it during the past few years - so plastics have responded.
Plastic Components in a Car
A quick look inside any model of car shows that the passenger compartment is dominated by plastics. This is the area where plastics are more traditionally established. But besides instrument panels, interior trim and upholstery, plastics are used in lighting, bumper systems, fuel storage and delivery systems, ducts, fenders and exterior body panels and increasingly in engine compartment or other under-the-hood components.
The ``invasion`` of plastics in the engine compartment is by no means over. Engineers in plastics and automobiles are working together closely now to optimise other systems, integrating injection and blow moulded parts, and harnessing plastics and elastomers that give a range of properties from ``soft`` to ``hard``, but can be moulded simultaneously or in sequence, offering a better product without expensive assembly work.
Plastics are also beginning to make a significant contribution to the structural make-up of the car. Intensive development of thermoplastics has opened the way to production of individual bodywork panels by injection moulding, to meet the high temperature of the paint stoving ovens used by the automotive industry, and electrically-conductive grades, for electrostatic painting.
Automotive and Transport Division Working Groups
Plastics in Transportation
Thanks to their numerous advantages, plastics have been increasingly used in vehicles over the last 25 years, representing today an average of more than 100 kg per car which replace 200 to 300 kg of traditional materials.
Plastics in Vehicles applications
- plastics for battery
- plastic body panels
- plastic bumpers
- plastic dashboard
- plastic door panels
- plastics for fuel system
- plastic interior and plastic exterior trims
- plastic lighting systems
- plastic seats, seatbelts, airbags
- plastic undershields
- plastic upholstery
Plastic Features and Advantages in Transport
