Hyundai is already near the top of the fuel economy ranks in the U.S. market, but that's not enough to meet future requirements. Currently, Hyundai trails only Honda and Toyota in the CAFE race. Going forward, Hyundai plans to upgrade its powertrains and reduce mass to get its conventional vehicles to use less fuel. On the propulsion front, the Korean manufacturer plans to shift to direct injection with both normally aspirated and turbocharged engines. Sister brand Kia already showed the Koup concept last spring in New York with a gasoline turbocharged direct injection engine. That engine will likely appear in Hyundai and Kia production models in the coming years.

Lee Hyun-soon, Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group's R&D boss told Automotive News that Hyundai will add six speed automatic transmissions to smaller and mid-sized cars and an eight speed automatic to the larger Genesis within two years. In addition to more efficient drivetrains, Hyundai will use aluminum, plastic and high strength steel to reduce the weight of its vehicles. While Hyundai is working on hybrids that are expected to start hitting the market sometime in 2009, Lee also said that the weight and cost of batteries means the company doesn't plan any full EVs anytime soon.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

With its most recent entries, the mid-sized 6 and sub-compact 2, Mazda has demonstrated that new generations of cars don't necessarily have to get heavier. Each of the recently introduced new models are at least 100 lbs lighter than the predecessors. For its next generation of new cars, Mazda intends to step up its game even more, aiming for reductions of over 400 lbs. Mazda engineers will completely re-examine the structural design of the cars. One of the areas of focus will be to direct crash forces through the floor pan rather than the body. The large surface area of the floor apparently requires less reinforcement to achieve similar load bearing capacity than the upper body structure. New aerated plastics will also help reduce the weight of the components that dominate the interior of the car. New powertrains, including continued development of the Wankel rotary engine, will also contribute to weight savings.

[Source: AutoCar]

Mazda has declared that by the middle of the decade they will have replaced their entire powertrain lineup and cut fuel consumption by 30 percent. On the powertrain side, engines will be upgraded across the board including a new direct injected wankel rotary. In 2009, a new Smart Idle Stop system will debut that restarts the engine using the direct injection system instead of the starter. Fuel will be sprayed directly into the cylinder and ignited to get the pistons moving. New gas engines will get direct injection and Mazda will add new clean diesels to the lineup worldwide as well as continuing to develop hydrogen-fueled engines.

Ford's Japanese affiliate intends to continue down the path begun with last years new Mazda2 and the new 6 this year by reducing the weight of new models. The trend of recent decades to higher powered engines has led to a cascading effect of increased mass to support the power. Mazda intends to reverse the process. From 2011, Mazda wants to cut at least 220lbs from new models.

[Source: Mazda]

The philosophy of Lotus founder Colin Chapman was always to make his cars as light as possible. He is reported to have said at various times "to add speed, add lightness" and "simplicate, than add lightness." Over the years, Lotus cars have often been among the lightest of their kind and innovations in weight reduction continue to this day. The work that Lotus has done in developing low mass vehicle structures for cars like the Lotus Elise and the Tesla Roadster is set to expand with the acquisition of Holden Lightweight Structures Limited. Worcester, UK-based Holden has been assembling the aluminum chassis for the Elise and other Lotus models and will now be renamed Lotus Lightweight Structures as it becomes part of Group Louts plc. As mass reduction becomes increasingly important to reducing fuel consumption and emissions in the coming years, Lotus is hoping the acquisition helps them better serve its engineering client base. The Hethel-based company can provide its design expertise as well as manufacturing capabiity. The Lotus press release is after the jump.

The current GMT920 full-size SUVs from General Motors are very likely to be the last of their kind from the Detroit automaker. Even though new fuel economy standards give the big trucks a break based on their footprint, radical changes are likely for the next-generation models. A fully-equipped Tahoe is well over 5,500lbs and a big part of reducing fuel consumption in the next few years will be weight reduction. One step in that direction will be a shift from the body on frame designs these vehicles have used since their inception over to a uni-body structure. Ford already declared that the next-generation Explorer will be a uni-body and GM has their Lambda platform crossovers which are nearly as large as the GMT920s. Sales of the Tahoe are already down 10.5 percent this year and that trend is likely to accelerate. The next-generation models that are due to debut around 2012 will almost certainly make the jump to a smaller, lighter platform. In fact, a distinct possibility might be an SUV derived from the Zeta platform like the Denali XT pickup concept that was shown at the Chicago Auto Show this year. Without the pickup bed and with a slightly taller roof, this design could likely shave nearly 1,000lbs off the current SUVs. Regardless of the design direction that GM follows, the maxi-sized SUVs and pickups will likely never reach the sales heights they once did, meaning that GM is planning to scale back production capacity. The current 1.7 million annual capacity will probably drop to somewhere around 1 million. GM recently announced plans to cancel one shift at each of four truck assembly plants. Going forward, that production will likely be consolidated to fewer plants.

[Source: Bloomberg]

Since the debut of the original BMW M3 in the mid-eighties, the high-performance editions of most of BMW models have garnered plenty of praise for their dynamic abilities. Unfortunately, over several generations, the M3, M5, and M6 have grown progressively porkier as they have grown more powerful. The engines have grown from the original four and six cylinder units to six, eight and then ten cylinder units.

As gas prices continue to climb and revised CO₂ and fuel consumption regulations hover on the horizon, BMW looks set to join the likes of Volkswagen, Ford and others as displacements and cylinder counts are reduced. BMW has already introduced turbocharged four, six and eight cylinder engines in recent models and these engines, combined with reductions in mass, are likely to result in both increased performance and efficiency in the next generation models from the M division.

[Source: Auto Motor und Sport via Autoblog and TTAC]

The Mondragon Unibersitatea (University of Mondragon, Spain) is currently leading a development project focusing on reducing car weight. It's estimated that reducing by 10 percent the weight of a car saves 7 percent of fuel at the pump. This project, called Automotive Lightweighting Materials is currently financed by 17 development centres and companies from different European countries. It's not news that reducing weight reduces pollution but what are the means MU will use to achieve this?

Current findings for this project are two new techniques that reduce weight while keeping material resistance. First, by optimising the manufacturing process of so-called "advanced high-resistance" steel, they can be from 15 to 25 lighter (it wasn't explained how the process works). Secondly, carbon composites, already used in high-end vehicles, can save from 25 to 70 percent. Speaking about the latter, research is focused on finding cheap carbon fibers, by means of researching nanoparticle-reinforced polymers and smart materials able to retain all mechanic properties at at least half of the cost of current carbon composites. Other aspects in which research is focused are the own structure of vehicles, in order to improve resistance with lower weight, increase security, material fatigue as well as the road comfort.

However, MU is also taking into consideration the ways a car can be disassembled for repairs and recycling once the vehicle is no longer needed.

Related:

• What a novel idea, reducing weight! The new Mazda2 gets lighter
• Does your car need a backpack?

[Source: Diario Vasco (link is in Spanish)]

AutoCar rendering of possible next generation Range Rover

When the current version of the Jaguar XJ was introduced a couple of years ago, the styling didn't change radically from the look that has prevailed on the big cat sedans since the late sixties. One major element of the car did change radically, the steel structure gave way to aluminum. The result was that even though the car grew larger in every dimension and had more equipment it was over 300 lbs lighter, reversing a seemingly inexorable trend among most cars.

Now Ford stablemate Land Rover is looking to follow the same path for the next generation Range Rover. The plan is to use conventional aluminum stampings for inner and outer body panels that are then rivet bonded together in technique similar to the Jaguar. The aluminum structure is expected to reduce the weight of the Range Rovers body by 700-900lbs, a very substantial change. That would bring the overall weight down to about 4800lbs which is by no means light but it would still provide for a fifteen percent improvement in fuel economy and perhaps more depending on what new engine technology is used. The new Range Rover could see the light of day by mid-2011.

[Source: AutoCar]