Innovative materials.
For today's cars.
Testing on passenger autos have shown that a weight reduction of 100 kilograms (220 lbs.) can lead to a reduction in fuel consumption of 0.4 to 0.5 liter (0.1 to 0.13 gallons) per 100 kilometer (61 miles). Now demanded by the markets, such weight reduction in the area of body-in-white while maintaining at least the same stability and a simultaneous improvement of the crash charateristics is, however, only possible if several areas of responsibility (such as engineering, manufacturing, material development, etc.) work together. The following measures have been shown to be useful:
- Design initiatives (for example, reduced wall thickness of the material and reinforcements in the areas of critical stresses)
- New forming technologies
- Innovative material applications
- Higher material grades with reduction of the wall thickness
Prompted by the increased use of aluminum, the steel industry in recent year has developed higher and higher strength steels with more or less good forming properties.
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