Rising fuel prices in the latter part of 2008 continued to motivate automotive OEMs to lightweight their vehicles to improve fuel economy. The U.S. energy bill passed in December 2007 raised fuel-efficiency standards to their highest level ever — 35 mpg by 2020 for OEM fleets, including light trucks. Composites continue to be attractive replacements for steel in efforts to lightweight automotive body panels, structural components and under-the-hood parts as part of an overall material mix aimed at improving fuel economy and lowering emissions. That said, the late 2008 financial meltdown on Wall Street further slowed auto and truck sales that had lagged throughout 2008. The poor saels showings had their greatest effect on already financially troubled U.S. automakers. Detroit's Big Three petitioned the U.S. government for relief as the year drew to a close and received a short-term "bailout" package a reluctant bailout from the outgoing Bush Adminstration, conditioned on the automakers' willingness to develop restructuring plans acceptable to the U.S. Congress. On the upside, if the incoming Obama Administration successful guides its $700 billion (USD) economic stimulus package through the U.S. Congress in first quarter 2009, U.S. automakers may benefit from funds earmarked for development of alternative energy technologies. Elsewhere in the world, less troubled automakers in Europe, Japan and Korea tightened belts and suspended some vehicle production to weather what most economists predict will be a deeply recessionary year for the auto industry.

The year 2008, nevertheless, saw continued development of lightweight composites technologies that should, given the need for automakers to cut car operational costs, eventually find widespread use. At the 2008 Automotive Composites Conference & Exhibition, sponsored by the Society of Plastics Engineers’ (SPE) Automotive and Composites Divisions, several new materials made their debut: IXIS 157 composite, first used on the Hyundai QarmaQ concept vehicle, was developed by the partnership of SABIC Innovative Plastics (Pittsfield, Mass.) and Azdel Inc. (Forest, Va.). The high-performance thermoplastic composite (HPPC) is designed specifically to make reinforced thermoplastics practical for horizontal body panels. It employs a sandwich of Azdel Superlite glass mat thermoplastic between two-ply skins of continuous unidirectional glass fiber wet out with thermoplastic resin. A new nano-filled, modified liquid crystal polymer, dubbed Quantech, has been developed by QLP Inc. (Quantum Leap Packaging, Wilmington, Mass.) in cooperation with automaker General Motors (GM, Flint, Mich.). Targeted to metal replacement applications, the polymer has a low coefficient of expansion (similar to steel), high stiffness and a density that is comparable to that of magnesium.

Elsewhere, renewable, bio-based fibers and resins based on soybean or corn will continue to “grow” in popularity for automotive applications. A new U.K.-based consortium called COMBINE is exploring the use of natural fibers, such as flax and hemp (in long, aligned form) in combination with bio-resins, for high-performance applications, including automotive.

Carbon fiber, despite its cost, is working its way farther into automotive niche vehicles. GM, committed to carbon in its Corvette sports car series, has said publicly that it will increase use of carbon fiber. Automaker Nissan (Yokohama, Japan), together with a consortium of companies that includes Toray Industries (Tokyo, Japan,), is working to bring down the cost of carbon parts through more efficient processing and lower cure cycles. Yet, many in the automotive industry say that composites still will have to earn their way onto vehicles with a more attractive combination of performance and price.