Materials in the automobile industry

The automobile industry represents an exceptional market which gives rise to technical, economic and marketing rivalry among materials. The automotive engineer has to examine this extended materials offer to seek optimum solutions to shifting vehicle specifications, which evolve with market pressure, customer expectations and regulatory constraints. This context of constant change stimulates studies aimed at introducing new materials but taking into account the main factors that affect the choice of materials - quality, cost, delivery, weight, recycling - depending themselves on the volumes of production.