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Saturday, April 14, 2012

How BMW Carbon Fiber is Born - Manufacturing at SGL [VIDEO]

Great video look into BMW's carbon fiber reinforced plastic manufacturing process at the SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers plants, with which BMW has a joint venture, and at BMW's Landshut plant.

BMW has ambitions to reduce the weight of its future vehicles by the incorporation of more carbon fiber (CFRP) into the manufacturing of its automobiles. As one recent article states best - It is out to create a new infrastructure for carbon-fiber auto manufacturing covering everything from the material to the final product, and in the process open the door for wider use of the material. The company's goal is to bring down the cost of carbon fiber to be competitive with aluminum.

The first big showcase model for this will be the BMW i3 electric vehicle and i8 hybrid electric sports car, which will both utilize plenty of carbon fiber. But look for increased use of CFRP in future cars beyond the i8 and i3.

BMW's current carbon fiber production chain starts off with sourcing raw material in Otake, Japan, to carbon fiber manufacturing in Moses Lake, Washington, to final material preparation at SGL.

The following videos features the CFRP process at SGL and BMW's Landshut plant in Germany.

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