Automakers race to trim weight, keep trucks brawny

The new mandates will take effect in 2016, which replaces car manufacturers such as Ford (FN) and General Motors (GM.N), only one design cycle to significant changes, the expensive steel, needed including aluminum, steel, new alloys and magnesium.

Car manufacturers are facing higher costs to the consumer to associate the mass come with power pass.

"There is much hand-wringing in the industry right now," Dick Schultz, said consultant at Ducker Worldwide and expert in the use of metals in cars. "You can not afford on the wrong side of this thing."

Car manufacturers need to achieve an average fleet consumption economy of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016. Light Trucks - half of all U.S. auto sales in the first 11 months of 2010 were - is to get about 30 miles per gallon.

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) for 2010 is 29.2 miles per gallon. For light commercial vehicles but it is 24.9 miles per gallon, according to the Government.

The updated standards at a time when the auto company is launching a series of battery-electric are to achieve plug-in and hybrid vehicles, which help the sector achieve the new targets.

But reducing the weight of their trucks is also critical to meet the new DirectiveSpain say automakers.

This presents a significant challenge, as the trucks' size and the demand that they be able to severe loads and ToWin handhabeng in merciless conditions.

Recent pickups weigh an average of nearly 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg).

"A difficult task"

So loose, consumers, automakers comfort, electronics and safety features have received in the last decade. As a result of the weight of trucks over 22 percent from 2000 to 2010 jumped, show federal data, while fuel consumption rose only 2 percent.

The first car manufacturer with a new model of large-pickup goal meet the tougher fuel economy standards will be GM with its Chevy Silverado for the 2014 model year.

"It is a difficult task, but we are facing it as adults," said Rick Spina, the full-size truck out development for GM. "We will do everything needed to make the customers in the implementation we want to keep changes in a fundamental way."

In addition to the 2016 target can auto manufacturers must achieve CAFE standards to 62 miles per gallon for the entire fleet by the year 2025, outlined under the ambitious scenario, the U.S. government.
Spina said GM wants up to 500 pounds from his truck scales to 2016 and from the early 2020s must be possibleas cut up to 1,000 pounds per truck.

With blown-in foam instead of a cheaper, but harder pad to noise could be in certain areas of the vehicle become more commonplace buffer, "said Spina.

Meanwhile, Ford is looking closely at a magnesium alloy frame for the next generation of its F-150 pick-up truck, tWO people familiar with the matter said. Ford is also looking for aluminum for the body parts using the F-150, they said.

By moving away from traditional steel, Ford was about 800 pounds from the truck shave, "said one person. The comments were confidential because the information is not made public.

Ford declined to comment on its specific product plans.

GM is also considering the use of aluminum and magnesium for the framework of future models of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks, "said Spina Reuters.

Avoid a "stranglehold"

Ford has trim with a goal as much as 700 pounds from his vehicle at a target that it was done earlier, "said Ford global product development chief Derrick Kuzak told Reuters.

Ford F-Series is the No. 1 selling vehicle in the United States of GM Silverado followed.

Auto manufacturers begin to tout the fuel as part of the image of brawny truck.

"They will not in be taken a stranglehold every time you fill, as it is also the best fuel consumption ", actor Denis Leary says in a TV commercial for Ford trucks.

But recent advances in vehicle technology, including the use of lighter materials, have hardly sell to consumers.

Ford, for example, abandoned an experiment with the massive use of aluminum in a limited number of Mercury Sables in the mid-1990s built. The experiment section morethan 350 pounds, but would add hundreds of dollars in costs, "said Schultz.

Eric Fedewa, director of IHS Automotive Global Powertrain Forecasts, said the additional cost of the truck market could squeeze as a proportion of total sales.

"With fuel economy standards, where they are, trucks kind of edges going out from the top of the market," said Fedewa. "Everything will change in the next vehicle cycles."Source