General Motors is very famous in automotive industries. The article, “Automotive Materials: Technology Trends and Challenges in the 21st Century” presented by Alan I. Taub, mentions the evolution of vehicle development in GM. Two intelligent points, lighter-weight and advanced materials, draw my attention and will be discussed here.
The main purpose to make the lighter-weight car is to increase fuel economy, but how to produce a lighter-weight car would be a challenge. GM tried to find some materials to substitute for steel. After comparing different materials’ characteristics, GM used aluminum, magnesium and high-strength plastics to replace steel in cars. Therefore, understanding those materials’ characteristics is very important.
Next step GM moved forward to use some advanced materials to further reduce weight, which makes them become the largest user of nanomaterial. For example, they have reinforcements at the nanometer scale. It is a good choice to get lower weight and costs but higher strength by wildly using nanocomposites on their vehicles. Besides, it can also be used to create higher quality and more reliable products.
Overall, automotive bring convenience to this world, but I am surprised at that changing of materials can bring different possibilities. When the car gets lighter, the cost of fuel will decrease. It will lead next generation to a batter automotive field.

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