Lightweight, cost-competitive PP innovations with high-quality edge for car makers

17-Apr-12

FIAT has turned to lightweight, cost-competitive materials from Borealis and Borouge, leading providers of innovative, value creating plastics solutions, to achieve top-level aesthetics and performance for interior and exterior components on its new Fiat Panda. The Panda model is one of the original equipment manufacturers’ (OEMs) key new platforms for 2012. Borealis and Borouge’s polypropylene (PP) automotive innovations combine a host of high-performance mechanical properties and processing advantages designed to ease production, and enhance the quality and surface finish of vehicle interiors and exteriors. In addition, the lightweight polyolefins offer vehicle weight savings when used to replace traditional parts materials, contributing to a reduction in fuel consumption. Borealis has assisted the company’s enhancement of performance and aesthetics of interior and exterior vehicle parts on models recognised for their safety and cutting-edge designs such as the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and Fiat 500. For the new Fiat Panda, Tier One supplier Magneti Marelli successfully used high-performance Daplen™ thermoplastic olefin (TPO) compounds from Borealis to achieve consistent parts with the visual appeal and safety-related performance to meet FIAT’s stringent quality requirements and technical specifications.