BMW and Mindset show off new materials for car bodies
Every car I have ever seen has had a car body completely made of metal. That metal might be steel or aluminum or some other metal composite but it is still metal. BMW has developed a fabric covered concept car and Mindset has used plastic. Say what?
You read that right. BMW has a concept convertible car made out of fabric called the GINA. GINA stands for Geometry in N Adaptations. The basic frame seems to be a Z8 roadster, but definitely with a different look.
GINA has the same aluminum frame as every other car on the road, but rather than using metal panels, BMW used special fabric. This has allowed BMW to play around with other elements of the car.
For example, the lights are not readily seen because they are under the fabric. When you turn them on, however, the lights shine through the fabric to light your way. Door handles are similarly invisible. Opening doors is a bit like sitting in a suit — they wrinkle as they open up and out.
Mindset, a new car company, formed by former Head of Design at VW, Murat Günak, and Swiss millionare, Lorenzo Schmidt, has developed a different car body from plastic. Again, Mindset uses an aluminum frame, but then covers that frame in plastic. Normal car features like lights are readily seen; although door handles appear to be non-existent, they work the way normal car doors do.
Mindset has also included solar panels built into the roof to add power to the 2-cylinder gas engine and lithium-ion batteries used in this hybrid. Günak wanted to design a car that was lighter, smaller, and more affordable when he designed the six50 with solar panels and plastic.
He succeeded with the lightweight and smaller, the six50 is a 2-door 2+2 seater. But at 31,000-50,000 Euros, he clearly missed the affordable portion of his goal.
The use of alternate body materials opens up a wealth of new opportunities and questions. By using fabric and plastic, any damage issues should be cheaper and easier to repair. Scratches on the plastic might be easier to take care of than the fabric, but should they use a fabric similar to the fabric used in the Nihon Uni T-shirt, scratches should be very difficult to make.
Other questions are left, however, such as will the plastic and fabric hold up to flying debris in a car crash? For that matter, would anyone inside one of these cars be more or less likely to survive a crash?
The materials are light-weight, but how do they function in extreme climates where you need air conditioning or heat to remain comfortable? Would these body types be more prone to letting in outside cold and heat and less likely to hold air conditioning and heat in? If the inside environment is not capable of maintaining a stable temperature from air conditioning or heating, does that require more energy and cut down on the energy saved from the lighter weight of the body?
Are there other composites that can be used? One main problem with plastic is that it is a petroleum product. Would using plastic actually mean maintaining our reliance on oil just to make a car that uses less of it? There are ways of making cellulosic plastic, and my hope would be that these car bodies would be either recycled plastic or non-oil-based plastic.
These new materials open up new opportunities for trying new lighter materials as car bodies, but there are a lot of questions left to answer before these new cars are deemed road-worthy.
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