Carbon Fiber Car Frames: Really?

Japanese company on Wednesday said it has developed a process to make lightweight car frames at mass production speeds, a process that could make vehicles more efficient and save energy.

Teijin Limited said in a press release it can mold an automobile frame of carbon fiber reinforced plastic in under 60 seconds.

"The breakthrough overcomes one of the biggest challenges in the industry and represents a long stride toward the use of carbon fiber for the mass production of automobiles and other products," the company's statement said.

The company said it has developed an electric vehicle to show the advantages of its new carbon fiber composite. The frame of the vehicle weighs only 47 kilograms (103 pounds), a fifth of what a metal counterpart would weigh, it said.

Previous molding processes for a car frame took at least five minutes each, the company said, making it unsuitable for mass production. With the new method taking less than a minute, efficient mass production is possible, it said.

Teijin plans to develop applications for the carbon fiber in making machine tools and industrial robots as well as automobiles, the statement said.

"Obviously I'm wrong, but what happned to make this possible?"

Processes are developing since the good old days of hand made parts?

All that happened was that somebody realized how big the market is. This is no different in principle from the development of cheap digital cameras, computer printers, etc.

Of course if you live in a country where 40% of the population thinks religion trumps science, and a large number think global warming is a myth, that may explain why the innovations are happening some place else.

The 3-years-late-and-counting Boeing 787 is hardly a shining example of successful technological innovation, but check out where the composite material components are coming from. The answer isn't Seattle.