Automotive Plastics & Polymer Composites A Roadmap for Future Mobility
Advanced plastics and polymer composites are integral to automotive design. Nearly every quality of the modern vehicle—from safety and performance to efficiency and aesthetics—relies on plastics and, increasingly, polymer composites to meet ever-evolving consumer expectations.
Now, the revolution underway in personal mobility is driving automakers to rapidly invent mobility solutions suited to an autonomous, connected, electrified, and environmentally responsible automotive future. To do so, automotive designers need new material solutions. Advanced plastics and polymer composites will continue to be essential on this journey to the future of mobility.
The Personal Mobility Revolution
Radical change is happening in the role of the vehicle and the ways people move from one place to another. Transformative technological, cultural, and economic megatrends are converging to reshape “personal mobility,” creating a demand for new material solutions that plastics and polymer composites are ready to provide. Take a closer look at these megatrends.
Convergence of IT & Auto Industries
Increasingly Urban Populations
Improved Battery Technology
Emergence of Alternatives to Personal Vehicles
Proliferation of Artificial Intelligence
Implementation of Fuel Economy Standards Encouraging Automotive Lightweighting
Growing Global Environmental Concerns
Modernization of Regulations and Standards to Enable Self-Driving Cars
Rise in Automotive- Buying Populations in Growing Economies
Plastics Are Ready for the Revolution
Advanced plastics and polymer composites offer an unparalleled combination of properties that are essential to achieving the opportunities outlined in the ACCESS framework. Learn more about the ways these materials can already help the automotive industry capture the opportunities in the ACCESS framework and shape the personal mobility revolution.
- Safely add sensors, electronics, and batteries to vehicles
- Offset added weight from additional features
- Enable design and seamless integration of high-value electronic content
- Support a reimagination of vehicle interiors
- Help modernize transportation infrastructure
- Promote sustainable design and supply chain
The ACCESS Framework
The technological, cultural, and economic megatrends driving the personal mobility revolution require new ways of thinking about automotive innovation. This roadmap offers a new framework—ACCESS—for capturing the opportunities created by today’s automotive transformation.
Autonomy
Advanced driver-assist safety technologies and other technological breakthroughs are helping to gradually relieve human drivers from controlling passenger vehicles.
Connectivity
Future vehicles will offer greater levels of connectivity and communications, driven not only by in-vehicle comfort and convenience but also by safety considerations.
Circularity
Principles of a circular economy emphasize recovering materials at the end of their usable life, refurbishing and repairing materials to extend product lifecycles, and remanufacturing and reusing them in new products.
Electrification
Electric vehicle (EV) sales are accelerating and projected to represent between 30% and 50% of worldwide vehicle sales by 2040, up from just 1% of worldwide vehicle sales in 2016.
Shared Mobility
Adoption of ridesharing has grown from 15% of U.S. consumers having used ridesharing in 2015 to as many as 23% of U.S. consumers in 2018, helping to reduce travel costs and environmental impact of passenger vehicles.
Sustainability
Automakers are working to achieve sustainable automotive design that reduces environmental impacts and improves the efficiency of products throughout their lifecycle.
