Designers, out-of-the-box thinkers and researchers are discovering that there may be something better than good old metal to make cars, car parts and vehicle interiors—plastic. And perhaps even Velcro.

But not just any plastic; specially designed durable plastic like car designer Chris Piscitelli’s concept designs, and “nanotech polymers” that researchers at MIT have created.

And it’s not your old sneaker’s version of Velcro either. UK research company, Warwick Manufacturing Group is developing a new technique that involves coating the surface of car components, such as bumpers and wing mirrors, with a surface of nanometer-sized “hooks and eyes.” The idea is intended to improve ease of recyclability or disposal of car parts.

At MIT, researchers have discovered by reinforcing the rigid crystalline structures in an elastic polyurethane with thin, flat, nanoscale clay platelets, they produced a material that is 20 times as stiff, four times as tough, and can handle temperatures more than twice as high.

And in Piscitelli’s new designs, he uses the advantages of plastic by heating it so the long, spaghetti-like molecules slide over each other to form new shapes, creating durable, cost-effective, lightweight plastics with sleek curves.

The [coconut car parts technology] and super-mini-sized Velcro is relatively new, but the plastics and nanotech polymer technology has been in development for years. Only time will tell whether these technologies could be the future of car manufacturing can be legitimately implemented into production, or if they’ll get swallowed up by more financially feasible technologies—good or bad.

Resources:
Science Daily, “Auto Designers Test Possibilities Offered by New Materials,” Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 02/01/06
Autopia, “Nanotech Polymers Could Lead to Ultralight Car Parts,” Mark Durham, 01/30/07
Physorg.com, “The Future of Car Manufacturing? Sticky ‘Velcro’ Car Parts,” University of Warwick, 08/20/08