Global demand for carbon fibres in the production of cars and other light vehicles is set to reach 8.5 million tons by 2015, according to a new report by Textiles Intelligence.

This prediction is based on the assumption that each new car will have just 100 kg of carbon fibres on average, but the actual potential market could be much greater as fibre prices come down with rising volumes.

Carbon fibre is a material consisting of extremely thin fibres -- with a diameter of around 0.005-0.010 mm. It is used as the reinforcing material in carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP), which forms the basis of carbon fibre parts currently used in aircraft, sports equipment and racing cars.

Its main advantage is its high strength to weight ratio. This makes it ideal in aircraft, where the imperative in an era of heightened eco-awareness is to reduce weight and hence fuel consumption. In sports equipment and racing cars the emphasis is on performance.

In aircraft, the use of carbon fibre has grown rapidly in recent years as the basis for composite parts. Twenty years ago it accounted for only 10% of an aircraft body. But in the latest superplanes -- notably the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner -- it has a share of over 50%.

Carbon fibre is also being used more than ever before by the aircraft used by the US military -- as well as in many other items of military equipment.

There seems little doubt that the next major phase of development for carbon fibre composites will be in vehicles -- and electric ones in particular as the need to reduce pollution and find an eco-friendly alternative to fossil fuels becomes ever more pressing. Carbon fibre is ideal because of its high strength to weight ratio and the need to reduce the weight of the car in order to increase the distance which the vehicle can be driven before its batteries need to be recharged.

To take advantage of the market potential, several companies have formed joint ventures and more are expected to follow. In one development, plans have been announced by a joint venture between SGL Group and the automotive manufacturer BMW to invest US$100 million in the construction of a new carbon fibre manufacturing plant at Moses Lake, Washington, USA.

Initially, fibres manufactured at the facility will be used exclusively for BMW’s Megacity -- a new electric vehicle which will be assembled in Leipzig, Germany, and launched before 2015 under a BMW sub-brand.

In its use of CFRP components, BMW is furthering a concept which it calls "sustainable mobility" -- by using a lightweight construction it will dramatically reduce fuel consumption and minimise CO2 emissions.

In a parallel development, the German company Daimler and the Japanese company Toray Industries announced in April 2010 that they planned to start joint development of carbon fibre car parts in 2012 for use in Mercedes-Benz cars.

The parts will be made from carbon fibre composite materials manufactured at Toray’s plant in France.

The new materials will be used in the Mercedes-Benz SL-Class, making this vehicle the first mass produced passenger car to include carbon fibre made by Toray.

Zoltek -- a leading carbon fibre manufacturer based in the USA -- announced in April 2010 that it had formed a new subsidiary called Zoltek Automotive to speed up the development of high volume applications for lightweight carbon fibres within the automotive industry.

At the time of the announcement, Zoltek’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Zsolt Rumy, said that the company had long identified the automotive industry as the biggest single potential user of the company’s low cost, high performance carbon fibres.

According to Zoltek Automotive’s CEO, David Stewart, "the value proposition and regulatory environment for carbon fibre automotive components have never been better. There is a large and rapidly-growing range of applications where these materials are ready to come out of the laboratory and [go] into high volume production. Our goal at Zoltek Automotive is ... to match emerging lightweighting opportunities with the right composite designs and manufacturing processes."

Executives at the Japanese company Teijin, another company to enter the market, believe that the use of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) will cut the weight of electric vehicles by more than half within a few years.

In March 2010 the company unveiled a super-lightweight electric concept car made with proprietary materials and technologies – including polycarbonate resins and bio-derived polyester as well as carbon fibre composites.

The car, known as PU_PA EV -- as in "pupa electric vehicle", a reference to metamorphosis -- weighs only 437 kg and embodies Teijin’s vision of what a vehicle on the market in five to ten years’ time will look like.