Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW)’s bid to save its cars from potential extinction starts with hundreds of thousands of fine white strands snaking upwards in a production hall in rural Washington.
Looped through an almost mile-long course, what looks like the world’s thinnest rice noodles will be stretched, toasted and eventually scorched black to create carbon fiber — a material thinner than human hair and yet tougher than steel.
BMW will use the sleek, black filaments for the passenger frame of the i3 electric car, which goes on sale at dealers in Germany tomorrow and around the world in the coming months. It’s the first effort to mass produce a car made largely from carbon fiber and represents the biggest shift in automobile production since at least the 1980s when the first all-aluminum car frames were made.
Via Tom van Avondt