Steel & Alloys Remain The Material Of Choice For Now, Says Ford CEO

Our cars are likely to be made of steel and alloys for the foreseeable future. The widespread use of composites such as carbon fibre for the auto industry appears distant due to the matter of costs, according to Ford's CEO Alan Mulally, who said “We cannot make a business case for composites in the auto industry” at a recent keynote speech in New York.

The new composite materials are lighter, easier to shape and stronger than the steel and alloys used in cars today. But the big volume of composites—and the prohibitive costs of producing them—involved in the mass production of cars is a stumbling block too big to overcome at the moment.

Mulally believes that today's steel and alloys can still be improved upon, after which aluminium, which is extensively used in the next-generation Audi A8, comes into play, before composites such as carbon fibre, currently featured on high-end supercars and custom jobs, should be considered.

AboutSeow Yaohan

Seow Yao Han strives to bring you the latest and the most comprehensive information on cars available in Malaysia. But it's never easy for him to talk and write cars in this part of the world because what you lust after is often not what you drive home. When the euphoria of test-driving that branded, super-expensive sports car dies down, he just goes home in his less-than-glamorous ride.

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