Aluminum in Body White for the Brazilian Market 2015-36-0173

Global automotive companies have heavily invested in the vehicle development in order to provide higher energy efficiency performance to meet the new regulations, and to obtain tax incentives offered by the INOVAR AUTO PROGRAM. One way to improve the vehicle energy efficiency is reducing it mass or apply an optimization. The Body in White (BIW) optimization can be achieved applying aluminum parts, considering the aluminum is a lighter material than the steel, and the BIW is responsible for a significant percentage of the total mass of a vehicle. The Brazilian market to apply the aluminum in the car will face a great challenge, regarding the high vehicle production using aluminum parts. The main challenges are raw materials suppliers to meet the potential demand, the connections between aluminum parts and metal parts, material cost, manufacturing cost, reparability, skilled specialists, etc. Some countries is expected an increase by over 300% in the aluminum application in BIW’s by 2025. This paper will present the current Brazilian scenario, the impact on the OEM’s with the aluminum application and the pros and cons in its application.