Ford's new F-150 will be up to 700 pounds lighter than the outgoing pickup truck. Photo credit: Len Katz.
When Ford Motor Co.’s new “aluminum-intensive” F-150 pickup launches production in the coming months it will mark a critical next step in a revolution quite literally reshaping the auto industry, as a growing number of automakers switch from traditional steel to lightweight aluminum.
Most analysts now anticipate a massive shift in materials, and the world’s largest producer of aluminum sheets used for vehicle bodies expects to see demand soar in the near-term – depending on how you measure it, anywhere from 300 to 500%. While that could play out well for consumers, since lighter cars typically use less fuel, it also threatens to push the price of aluminum up, which could translate into higher vehicle costs.
By 2020, aluminum is expected to make up 25% of total sales for Novelis, Inc., the Atlanta-based manufacturer that is the world’s largest source of aluminum sheets to the auto industry. The auto industry currently uses only 9% of that supply from Novelis which is owned by Hindalco, the world’s largest aluminum sheet supplier, based in Mumbai, India.
“The overall pie is growing and still the share of automotive sales will jump,” Debnarayan Bhattacharya, managing director of both Novelis and its parent Hindalco Industries Ltd., told the Bloomberg news service “We’ve started supplying to Ford for their F-150.”
(End of an era: the last steel Ford F-150 rolls off the Dearborn assembly line. Click Here for the latest.)
Jaguar Land Rover has also been shifting to aluminum with new models like this Range Rover Sport.
The company’s optimistic forecast is in line with other recent studies. One, released in June by consulting firm Drucker Worldwide, estimated that more than 75% of all pickups will migrate to aluminum bodies over the next decade.
“Within the next ten years, seven out of 10 new pickups produced in North America will be aluminum-bodied, and so too will be more than 20% of SUVs and full–sized sedans,” said the study, which was commissioned by the Aluminum Association’s Aluminum Transportation Group.
(Automotive designers and engineers turn to aluminum: Click Here to find out why.)
The focus on larger, heavier vehicles is no surprise. For one thing, it’s easier to justify the added cost on larger models. And they also will need more of a boost as increasingly stringent emissions and fuel economy laws go into effect – including the 54.5 mpg mandate scheduled to take effect in the U.S. in 2025.
According to the general rule of thumb, fuel economy increases by about 1 mpg for every 100 pounds of mass a manufacturer can take out of a vehicle. Switching to aluminum – or even lighter carbon fiber – is a fast way to slash weight.
Manufacturers are looking at a variety of alternatives to cut mass. BMW and GM are both investing in the development and production of super-light carbon fiber, but that material remains far too costly for mainstream applications at this point.
Aluminum also carries a premium over steel, but one manufacturers seem willing to consider for the right vehicles, in part because they need less of it by weight.
According to the Drucker study, not only will automakers nearly triple the share of total aluminum sheet metal they will be using, but they will boost total demand for the metal fivefold to 35 billion pounds by 2025.
(Ford investigating fire that destroyed prototype of aluminum Super Duty truck. Click Here for the story.)
One of the big concerns is how much that will impact the price of the raw material. Aluminum has traditional had more swings in cost than steel, a factor that has led some makers to shy away from the metal. And there are some observers who fear shortages that could translate into significantly higher vehicle costs.
Producing raw aluminum is an energy-intensive process, but proponents of the metal are hoping that as more is used, there also will be more available for recycling. Reusing the metal is far less demanding of energy and could help hold prices down going forward, they contend. That could make it easier for automakers to switch even more vehicles from steel to aluminum.