Global Automotive Composites Market To Be Driven By Polymer Matrix Composites

Global Automotive Composites market to be driven by polymer matrix composites

20-Sep-16

Increasing pollution due to rising number of vehicles over the last few decades is influencing governments worldwide to revamp their environmental regulations, wherein, the emphasis is on the reduction of carbon emission from vehicles. Automakers are focused towards using lightweight materials to build the external and internal parts of vehicles in order to reduce the weight of the vehicle, and, in turn, improve fuel efficiency. This is a major factor driving the growth of the automotive composites market, as per Persistence Market Research. Consumers are more inclined towards purchasing lightweight and fuel-efficient vehicles due to increasing fuel prices over the last decade. This is influencing automakers towards investing in the R&D of lightweight materials to manufacture the exterior as well as interior parts of the vehicle. This reduces the overall weight of the vehicle, in turn, improving its fuel efficiency.
Composites with properties such as high tensile strength, lightweight, good corrosion resistance and surface tension, and are easy to process are ideal materials to manufacture lightweight vehicles with good fuel efficiency. Moreover, increasing owing to increasing, per capita vehicle ownership has increased, especially in developing Asia-Pacific countries such as India and China. This is further driving the use of carbon composite in the automotive industry for the manufacture of lightweight and fuel-efficient vehicles, in turn, driving the automotive composite market to some extent. In 2013, there were 800 vehicles per 1,000 people in the U.S. compared to 600 vehicles per 1,000 people in Japan, 80 cars per 1,000 people in China, and 25 vehicles per 1,000 people in India.

Asia-Pacific is the largest market for automotive composites. Increasing domestic production of vehicle paired with increasing disposable income is driving the automotive composites market in the Asia Pacific region. One of the major factors contributing to the growth of the automotive composites market in North America and Europe are stringent CO2 emission rules in these regions.