BMW designers lean on plastics for zero-emission cars

In an interview at the recent Business of Design Week in Hong Kong, Adrian van Hooydonk, senior vice-president of BMW Group Design, said he was excited by the creative possibilities opening up with the new lightweight materials, including traditional plastics, carbon fibre reinforced plastics and aluminium.

But he also urged materials firms to continue making advancements, as car companies come under more environmental pressure, and had some specific advice for plastics companies.

“[Reducing vehicle weight] is getting more and more important because we are going into I think an era of quite a lot of change in the automotive field,” said van Hooydonk, who is responsible for the design development of the BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce brands. “We are going to zero emission mobility.”

BMW, for example, plans to roll out what it calls “zero local” emission or low emission models in 2013, its all-electric i3 for urban driving and its hybrid i8 sports car.

Van Hooydonk, who worked as a designer for GE Plastics Europe in Bergen Op Zoom early in his career, said both of the new i Series cars use all-plastic body panels, a carbon fiber plastic composite structure and aluminium substructures. They’re all needed to cut weight to accommodate the heavy batteries these next-generation cars need, he said.

In its press materials for the i Series, BMW said CFRP is at least as strong as steel but 50 percent lighter.

“We are looking into all sorts of materials,” van Hooydonk said, in an interview with Plastics News before his speech at the Hong Kong event, a week-long series of related conferences from 28 November to 5 December. Plastic Mould “You probably know we are looking into carbon fibre but we are also looking into all sorts of plastics.

“Governments around the world are pushing for cleaner cities; this is understandable,” he said. “They are putting legislation in place to get cars with lower emissions.”

BMW is particularly interested in CFRP materials, and is working to fully commercialise what he called “industrial” carbon fibre manufacturing that can be mass-produced quickly.

He contrasted that with the current carbon fibre manufacturing technology it uses, which is similar to that used to make race cars, a very slow process.

“We’re pushing very hard to make that happen but it is a new territory,” he said. “I think we are at the forefront of that technology, from what I know. In two years’ time we can say that we have done it but at the moment we can say we’re developing it.”

BMW opened a joint venture carbon fibre manufacturing plant in Washington State in mid-2011.

Van Hooydonk’s comments about weight reduction and the key role of new materials echoed other auto designers at the Hong Kong event, including Olivier Boulay, head of Mercedes-Benz’s new Advanced Design Centre in China, who agreed that the environmental pressures on car companies are pushing new materials.

“You can go with plastic, you can go with aluminium, carbon fibre, whatever,” Boulay said. “We need every day to go with lighter and lighter but also strong … materials.”

Beyond weight, van Hooydonk said these materials open up design possibilities.

“Of course as a designer I like working in these new materials because it offers a lot of sculptural freedom,” he said. “Typically in those kinds of materials, you can create very nice shapes, complex shapes, [and] you can create sharp lines as well as soft surface transitions. Those are all things that are important to us at BMW.”

He also had some specific advice for plastics companies for research.

In-mould colouring processes need to be improved so they can stand up to the performance requirements of the auto industry, and let car companies use parts from the mould for a class A, high gloss surface without needing to be painted, he said.

“I know it’s not easy,” he said. “Cars are not like vacuum cleaners, [they] get into real accidents and they have to be used outdoors.”

He also said more work should be done with in-mould metallic finishes that do not show the flow lines: “I know this is a tricky topic but this is something I’d like to see more development of.”