Materials used in automobile manufacture - current state and perspectives

The materials which are applied in modem motor vehicles can be considered to be optimally accommodated to the actual demands. Normally a change of materials is only required if by that a cost reduction can be realized, or if the demands change. Such changes at present or in the near future mainly concern ecological aspects: consumption reduction; weight reduction; low emission of pollutants by vehicles and in the production process; recycling of materials. Those materials in question which better accommodate the new requirements can be: improved variants of actually applied materials; fully developed materials approved already in other technical areas but not yet applied in automotive engineering; newly developed materials. Starting from the actual conception examples will be given for each category. They will show that the cost of future materials tend to be higher, but that even with more expensive materials sometimes the cost of a component can be reduced.