Unbearable lightness?


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We investigate fires.
The presence of aluminium in combination with water, battery acid, brake fluid or
halogenated aircon fluids can change a small fire into a disaster.
A typical deep freeze with aluminium panels, polystyrene insulation and HFC coolant is really special.
A local cold store with HFC cooling, aluminium cladding over polystyrene burnt out in minutes.

Expect more and worse vehicle fires.

George Carr


As the previous commnet says is nothing hasn´t to be, as a matter of fact if the market is prepared to pay for a $200,000 car lightweight oriented you will find a lot of solutions.

Problem is not technical, enginners have a lot of gadgets for it, problem is the incorporation of the gadgets in market price conditions.


Ton for ton, aluminium production consumes 30-50% more energy than steel. That is an additional tradeoff.


I've been to Europe and driven in the cars.
Lighter is not safer. Sometimes the car sizes are required to be small because the streets and parking lots are so small.
But I would be willing to drive a lighter car.
Laws require U.S. cars get safer and safer.(heavier)
And innovation is stifled a bit because of the laws.


This has been an interesting discussion , and at a somewhat higher technical level than most.
By coincidence this morning this morning, I visited a micro manufacturer of one of the Lotus seven derivatives, partially social because it was a surprise birthday party for the owner, David Saville Peck
So a snarling Super Seven turned up at my door this morning to drive thirty miles or so to the plant , then another which my wife and the other woman proceeded to decorate with Balloons and birthday paraphenalia.
The cars of course are aluminum, fibreglass and stainless and very light. And therefore should be free from corrosion.
They are now quite refined compared withe the sixties lotus seven , weather protected, a heater wipers etc. Though there are still no doors so you climb in rather like getting in to a kayak. Actually my other friend and his wife use theirs for everyday transportation.
Driving is a very different experience from ordinary cars . It is quite noisy since their is little or no sound insulation, but its easy to have a conversation at 60 miles an hour , The cornering is magic, no body roll what so ever. Maybe I could get a mortgage and replace the boring Saab.
David is not really interested in construction aspetics, he simply buys the components from Cataram and concentrated on go faster engineering , but he says body repairs are not a problem, he uses the boat industry for fibreglass repairs , and the Aluminum parts do not have compound curves. In extremis he can employ an aircraft overhaul facility. At the plant after the birthday hilarity , He said now you are both here lets have an engineering meeting , I am trying to add a super charger ,try and remember the gas laws from A level physics . and we got nowhere so had to pack in in.
I sometimes wonder if the auto motive future is not with the volume manufacturers , who often labour like the mountain and produce mice. But with a multiple of small producers like David. The cars might cost three times as but last three times as long , so could be economic.
Certainly more fun for the guys in the shop , who were invited in for Birthday Cake.


Ivan: I kept a VW Kombi in Africa when I was raising my kids. It was perfect for moving and kids and supplies for a large household. The mileage wasn't that bad, either, and I was paying huge prices per litre of petrol. Mind, we were making it out of coal, a technology that causes enviroNAZIs to have hysterics when it is even mentioned. :-)


Sherbrooke: Apples and bananas. What is palmed off as a station wagon in the US after CAFE is a very pale shadow of what went before.

Ivan Samik

Station Wagons, called Combi in these parts, are very popular here, at least in Central Europe. People like to have space to carry stuff, although 99% of the time they don't. But it's probably the same everywhere.



Riiiight... and the decline of station wagons (which are not illegal - they are perfectly available right now) has absolutely nothing to do with minivans, that are actually more meaningful for a family with kids.

If anything, SUV is just a minivan made to look and feel "manlier". I have to say that US SUV's have crammed passenger space - I'd pick a big sedan any time over them.


When talking about Aluminun, don't forget Magnesium.
Mg alloy is 33% lighter than Al alloy and it is abundant on earth.
Its output doubled every year in the past several years.


Dunno if most people realizes this, one goes to the supermarket/office and back rolling TWO TONS OF STEEL, plastic and electronics.
Can we build cars, weighing one-tenth that weight? Of course, simply raise the price of gas to $25 per gallon.
At that point, there will be very few Suburbans on the road


Craig Stephens, sorry to hear about your mishap.

I can empathise in that I once had a fiberglass bodied car (a 1972 Reliant Scimitar), that was in a minor accident and got written off because body shops had no idea how to handle repairs.

I would expect if aluminium became more common, support industries would evolve to support it. But for now as you observed, they are in the minority. I'm curious if anyone posting has had a similar experience repairing a more "mainstream" aluminium car such as the Audi A8 or a Jaguar XJS.

I'd observe that body shops are having to evolve to cope with the increased use of high strength steels. These steels cannot be worked the same way as lower strength grades and "banged" back into shape, without cracking. Also welding requires careful regulation of the heat input to prevent a loss of mechanical properties. This forces body shops towards high skill welding processes such as TIG.


plaasjaapie, I'm sorry if my message didn't pierce your dark cloud of cynicism.

My take is: Europe rocks, US rocks for different reasons. I enjoy taking lessons from both.

Thanks for your other (non cynical) contributions. 3D printing is an interesting technology.

Craig Stephens

Ownership costs of aluminium vehicles are further increased by the high expense of repairing them after a crash. A minor rear fender-bender in my beloved NSX cost $15,000 and four months to repair. That's because aluminium body parts cannot be heated and banged back into shape, as can steel -- heating aluminium parts destroys their strength. There were only four body shops in all of Massachusetts qualified to do the work, and a special reshaping jig had to be shipped in from the West Coast. Insurors know all this, of course, and charge higher rates for such cars. Even so they often refuse to pay the full cost of these expensive repairs. It's no wonder that aluminium cars are often scrapped due to modest damage that would be repaired in a comparable steel-body car.

Craig Stephens


bradshsi: Yeah, yeah... Europe rocks, US sucks. Heard it. Got t-shirts. I've lived in both and think they both suck, for different reasons.


Simon says
Thank you , I presume it's a closely guarded secret as to the quality grade that each auto manufacturer selects.

simon says


It's not an issue of Japanese vs. Euro. There are relatively few big connector manufacturers in the world, Tyco Electronics, Molex, FCI, Amphenol, and a few others. The first two alone represent 40% or so of the market if my memory serves. All these large makers operate in all 3 global regions. So "Japanese" connectors are the same as "Euro" and "Americas". What makes the difference is what quality (more accurately, reliability) the customer buys. My guess in your case is Suzuki opted for better reliability in its connector choice. Saab opted to save some money.


Sorry to hear about your connector problem. But it's not inherent to connectors, it is either an issue of the connector chosen for your app and the conditions of use or, maybe, the particular connector has a design issue. But as I noted, Boeing pays a lot more per interconnect than Honda which pays more than Mattel. It's a matter of a good design for the app, making the part right, and then the customer choosing the right part for the application. Simple :-)

Too bad about maintaining anonymity here. Prevents me from offering more. Good luck.


plaasjaapie, if you went to bash lefties (and I admit I occasionally enjoy the activity myself), at least try to be accurate in your bashing.

First off, German autobahns are not all unlimited in terms of speed (and yes I've driven on my fair share over the years). But the key point is that gas prices in Europe are more reflective of the external economic costs of driving (pollution, accidents, sprawl etc). So if you want to drive fast, you pay for it. That seems a lot more free market than having subsidised transport, which is what the current system in the USA amounts to.

Basically as others have noted the CAFE regulations are a really dumb way to enforce efficiency standards. It is far better to correctly price fuel. That way if you want to drive a Hummer and can afford it, go ahead. I might view someone who does as being aesthetically challenged, but that is just my opinion, and who's to say someone doesn't think the same of me for driving a Ford Focus SVT.

Second, demographics in Europe. Southern Europe has v low fertility rates, but the UK, and the Nordic countries have similar birth rates to France. When you factor in immigration, the net polulation growth for Europe is 0%, hardly a "demographic collapse".

By contrast the USA has a birth rate of 2.1, only just at replacement levels, and a population growth of 0.6% (due to immigration legal and illegal).

So given that the birth rate in the USA and France are basically the same 2.1 vs 2.0, I'm struggling to understand why families in the USA need all that extra space ??? I'm tempted to suggest it is due to the current flirtation with record high rates of childhood obesity (an interesting discussion in and of itself), that cause the average family to need a Chevy Tahoe or Dodge Minivan.

Perhaps they should market models with heavy duty springs and a loading ramp for when junior tips the scales past 300lbs ;)


Simon says.

Very interesting on the subject of electrical /electronic connectors . There are three grades of component quality , Military , industrial and consumer .
I have selected connectors for the military and industrial often enough but not for consumer products , but I suffer from the ills of consumer electronics in my personal life.
My wife has a 94 Suziki swift , which is remarably reliable , I have a 92 Saab which is a loveley car but as it is getting old it is plagued with minor electrical problems, usually connections.Rear window defroster , stuff behind the dash etc.
I don't think one can generalise from this micro sample , but I do have the suspicion that Japanese electrical components are of higher quality than the European.


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