Worlds First All-Plastic Car Body

Thermoformed chassis and body panels are featured on the car. The products were made initially in the USA for assembly in China. The car will weigh less than 2000 lb (900 kg). Automotive Design Composites, Inc of San Antonio, TX, designed the vehicle to have body panels and trunk formed from coextruded sheet of ABS with an ASA cap layer that will hang on a pultruded composite frame. Ceramic tooling is used to thermoform plastic products. 

The chassis is made from a 1/4 in. sheet of either ABS or TPO vacuum formed into a tub and reinforced with reinforced pultruded glass fiber-TS polyester plastic tubing. The hood and other products are being made from a 20 mm thick sandwich of thermo-formed PPO-alloy skins, glass fabric infused with thermosetting vinyl ester, and a urethane foam core. The bumper and front fascia is thermoformed from a polyolefin elastomer sheet with an UV-resistant cap layer of DuPont s Tediar PVF film. The dash and 

Quadraxially oriented (four directional layer) glass fabric-TS vinyl ester polyester RP sheet panels with a foam core and gel coating are used. Most of the panels are 3 mm thick with molded-in rib structure supports. Body skins are bonded to the chassis with a double-stick acrylic tape developed by 3M Co. as well as mechanical fasteners. Unlike most steel designs, no B-pillar structural component between the front and rear doors is required thus providing more interior space and easy entry since doors open in opposite directions. 

The bumper to bumper measures 4.6 m (15.18 ft) weighs 815 kg (1793 lb) that includes 1200 lb (550 kg) of plastics has a gas/electric hybrid power system, air bags, neon tube tail-lamps, etc. and gets 132 km (60 miles) per gallon of fuel. Huatong and the Chinese government have funded 100 million in this global project. 

Evaluation was made on four prototype cars, and China s Huatong Motors expects to assemble 5000 units at its Sichuan plant in the first year. Once on the market, the 

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