Latest News

Coming Soon: Your Personal Flying Car
The carbon-fiber vehicle takes off vertically, right from your driveway (presuming you have 100 ft of clearance), using electric-powered rotor blades mounted on each side.

Boeing Executive Discusses Ins and Outs of 787
Low-cost, large-scale composites manufacturing technology allows a significant increase in the use of composites on the 787.

New Research: Consumers Embrace New Fuel Economy Standard, are Purchasing More High MPG Vehicles, and Plan to Significantly Increase Fuel Efficiency in Future Purchases
First “progress report” on 54.5 mpg standard shows consumer demand strong, automakers meeting the challenge, and electrics gaining popularity.

Automotive Lightweighting Applications: The Road Ahead
Lightweighting measures are expected to be applied to every car model launched in the coming years. The average car contains 15 percent of its total weight—or roughly 400 pounds—of plastics, with its use in automotive manufacturing accelerating.

Renault's New Electric Concept Car Looks Like A Firefly On Acid
French carmaker Renault and Welsh industrial designer Ross Lovegrove teamed up to create this LED-covered, lightning-bug-looking electric city car, called the Twin'Z.

EPA Report Marks Significant Gains in Vehicle Efficiency, Propelled by Chemistry
The automotive industry has seen significant improvements in vehicle efficiency in recent years, according to EPA's annual report.

Plastic Potential: Automakers Turn to Alternative Materials to Help Vehicles Shed Pounds
While much of the press around lightweighting vehicles has been focused on substituting aluminum and magnesium or exotic materials such as carbon fiber in the place of steel, the industry is also looking at the role of plastics.

3-D Printed Car Is as Strong as Steel, Half the Weight, and Nearing Production
Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.

Will Your Next Car Have Plastic Windows?
Polycarbonate windows have been used in racing cars for years to shed pounds, Ernst writes, and the time may be right to roll out plastic windows in production cars, too.

Plastics to Play Key Role in Achieving New Auto Fuel Efficiency ("CAFE") Standards
Plastics industry leaders established for a committee of the National Academies of Science’s National Research Council (NRC) that lightweight plastics and plastics composites are essential to helping automotive OEMs meet stringent new corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

Plastic Seen as Car Windows' Future
High-strength plastic windows will soon replace the window glass in some vehicles.

German Consortium Led by BMW Developing Lightweight EV Concept
The cockpit designed by Visio.M uses carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) for a lightweight but comfortable ride.

Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Packed with Chemistry Innovations Steal the Scene in Detroit
According to ACC’s Chemistry and Light Vehicles report, each pound of plastics and plastic composites in a vehicle typically replaces 2-3 pounds of other, heavier materials, which helps to improve fuel efficiency while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

BMW, Toyota Team Up Again
The companies said part of that co-development would focus on lightweight technologies for vehicle bodies, "using cutting-edge materials such as reinforced composites."

Ford Gets an A+ for Marketing the Auto Show Experience
While there's no shortage of beautiful, eye-catching design throughout the show, picking a winner on the marketing front was easy this year: Ford wins hands down.

Detroit Sheds Pounds for Gas-Mileage Gains
Auto makers wrestling with ambitious mileage goals have touted hybrids and electrics as the wave of the future, but they have found a quicker path to improved fuel efficiency, reinventing the way traditional gas-powered cars are built.

New, Interactive Case Studies Related to Automotive Efficiency from ACC Members BASF, LANXESS and Celanese
With the launch of a new interactive display, we highlight member products, how they work, and how they empower our nation to make more efficient (and less costly) use of our domestic energy resources.

Plastics Help Drive Auto Safety
Innovative plastics are expected to continue replacing other materials for many reasons, including improved design and reduced weight to increase fuel efficiency.

Mitsubishi Motors Selects SABIC NORYL GTX™ Resin for 2013 Outlander Sport and Industry-First 2-Cavity Injection Molded Fenders
“Mitsubishi Motors is the first automotive OEM to use the new NORYL GTX resin grade, which speaks to the progressiveness of the company with new strategies that multiply the performance and cost benefits of thermoplastic fenders,” said V. Umamaheswaran (UV), director of marketing, Automotive, Innovative Plastics.

Lightweighting Through Chemistry Products Revolutionizes Vehicle Efficiency
Many automakers are turning to carbon fiber and plastic composites—both ultra-light and durable—as key materials to reduce weight in vehicles.

Ford Battery Pack and Citroën Rear Quarter Window with SABIC Materials Recognized among Year’s Best Automotive Plastic Innovations
The Ford Focus Electric’s high-voltage battery pack molded from SABIC’s NORYL™ GFN resin helps give the new electric vehicle extended driving range, greater battery capacity and lighter weight than traditional materials.

Chrysler Group LLC’s 2013 SRT Viper® Supercar Named SPE® Vehicle Engineering Team Award Winner
According to Mike Shinedling, Viper engineering launch manager, SRT Engineering, at Chrysler Group, "The Viper has a long tradition of raising the bar on plastics and composites innovation."

3D Printing Is Taking Off
"To make a plastic turbofan engine to scale five years ago would have taken two years, at a cost of about $250,000," engineer David Sheffler, an adviser on the project, said in a statement. "But with 3-D printing we designed and built it in four months for about $2,000."

Study: Plastics' Light Weight Worth Potential Environmental Impacts
The American Chemistry Council is touting the results of a life-cycle analysis that shows lighter-weight plastic auto parts not only save fuel, but those fuel savings easily outweigh any impacts from producing those parts.

Plastics Auto Analyses: Huge Energy Savings from Use Phase
The life cycle performance of two polymers in comparison to commonly used steel alloys was assessed in automotive applications through two new studies sponsored by ACC's Plastics Division.