This problem involves the positioning of carbon fiber composites-even polymer matrix composites-in the field of modern industry. Let me quote one sentence to explain:
“The end of the Stone Age did not end because the stone was used up. The era of petroleum energy will also exit early before the oil runs out.”
“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”
Why will these eras end? The former is because humans have discovered the smelting of bronze, while the latter will slowly withdraw from the stage of history under the large-scale development of renewable energy and nuclear energy. This principle is also applicable to the application of carbon fiber composites in the automotive field. Back to your question itself: Is there any need for car companies to choose carbon fiber?
Currently they do not.
From an industrial point of view, metal materials—whether it is magnesium and aluminum alloys, the main rivals of composite materials in terms of lightweight, or traditional super-strong and thin steel structures, are currently the most effective, most commercially profitable and the most effective system. Mature manufacturing system. At present, most of the suppliers in the market under the banner of lightweight are also adopting metal material systems. Because the metal material lightweight system is more compatible with the automobile manufacturing system of the pre-lightweight era, the system transformation speed is faster, the production, education and research system is more mature, and there are many employees. In contrast, due to the lightweight manufacturing of composite materials, especially carbon fiber composite materials, if you want to integrate into the current automobile manufacturing system, you must give up all the advantages above. This means that the production equipment will be re-purchased and debugged, and most of the equipment on the metal production line can only be resold or even abandoned; it also means that an almost new non-destructive testing system and an almost new industry production standard must be adopted. , An almost new quality inspection system, an almost new maintenance and repair system; it also means the use of new theories and scientific research funding to guide actual production; more importantly-elementary, intermediate, and advanced composite material technicians are now global Scarce. Because of my research, I have learned about the UK and EU’s composite material industry layout plan to 2022, and I know that there is a big gap in personnel, especially those with industrial career and scientific research capabilities. The current plan for the UK and Europe is to be in 2022. Double the number of existing composite materials practitioners. This is still in Europe, a place where benefits and senior workers’ treatment are superior, and the situation in our country is even less optimistic. And the lack of employees makes it even more impossible to talk about the problems I mentioned before. The above-mentioned various situations exist objectively. I am in my other answer: Can carbon fiber be used in production cars? The above issues were mentioned in the analysis of the BMW Leipzig plant and the BMW/SGL strategic layout.
But just as we discovered and finally started to use materials such as bronze and steel, human beings will not develop in the direction of higher energy efficiency because it is difficult to produce, or there is no economic benefit for the time being. Otherwise, why did the humans of the Stone Age take so much effort to first burn so much charcoal, then make a blow, then build a small blast furnace with mud, and then four or five strong men blowing into the furnace day and night Gas, fan, fuel? Pick up a stone and grind it, which is much simpler than the above steps. Similarly, there are trains, steam engines… I won’t enumerate them here. The same is true for the advanced position of carbon fiber composites in automobile manufacturing, even in the manufacturing of vehicles in a broad sense. Economic benefits are not currently the first driving force.
But this does not mean that it will never be economically profitable.
The current application of carbon fiber composites in automobiles is more conceptual promotion and application. Our observations in the industry can easily find that now only BMW is leading the large-scale carbon fiber composite car manufacturing, and there are few other car manufacturers that have really joined? Why? Because it doesn’t make money, the world’s only large-scale manufactured and commercialized full-carbon fiber composite electric vehicle i3 is actually selling at a loss. It is true that only a giant in the auto industry like BMW can play such a pioneering role. It would be great for other manufacturers to make traditional models profitable. BMW focuses on the concept of carbon fiber composites, which reflects their in-depth observation and strategic layout of the automotive industry. I guess that BMW can perceive that the application of carbon fiber composites in transportation is an unstoppable historical trend, but the early incubation period is very long; but once this trend comes, it will completely revolutionize the upstream and downstream of the entire transportation industry. Production chain. It is very likely that mankind will break away from the days of relying on fossil energy and move towards the electromagnetic century. The concept of the car will gradually withdraw from the stage of history.
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Post time: Aug-13-2021