Current trends in automotive lightweighting strategies and materials

Abstract

The automotive lightweighting trends, being driven by sustainability, cost, and performance, that create the enormous demand for modern lightweight materials and design concepts, are assessed as a part of the circular economy solutions in modern mobility and transportation. The current strategies that aim beyond the basic weight reduction and cover also the structural efficiency as well as the economic and environmental impact are explained with an essence of guidelines for materials selection with an eco-friendly approach, substitution rules, and a paradigm of the multimaterial design. Particular attention is paid to the metallic alloys sector and progress in global R&D activities that cover the “lightweight steel”, conventional aluminum, and magnesium alloys, together with well-established technologies of components manufacturing and future-oriented solutions, and with both adjusting to a transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. Moreover, opportunities and challenges that the lightweighting creates are discussed with strategies of achieving its goals through structural engineering, including the metal-matrix composites, laminates, sandwich structures, and bionic-inspired archetypes. The profound role of the aerospace and car-racing industries is emphasized as the key drivers of lightweighting in mainstream automotive industry.