2015 Ford aluminum bodied prototype spotted testing.

It might cut down on rust, but it won't cut down the price.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?That would cut down on rust. Rust Never Sleeps.

it'll cut down on running costs if it reduces the massive weight problems cars are currently suffering from. and while i'm sure the manufacturers will bleat about increased costs and try to hike prices, the facts is, aluminum isn't that much more expensive than steel in terms of material, and saves money in some aspects of fabrication. the result is a wash. in bicycles [for instance, because it's an industry that's gone through this transition already, including the initial price premiums followed by equilibrium parity], both high and low spec aluminum frames are cheaper than all but the very nastiest steel.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Rust Never Sleeps.

i should add, it's definitely going to be a transition detroit will fight hard to resist. the "rust belt" is their "profit belt". you can therefore bet your @$$ that if detroit has to go down the aluminum road, it's going to be with alloys that are just as corrosion susceptible, if not more so, than steel.

Going to make doing bodywork interesting.

m6onz5a wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@a19g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:

Won't cut down on corrosion, either.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?That would cut down on rust. Rust Never Sleeps.

Says the guy who has never worked as a design or manufacturing engineer.

i don't think it'll make much difference, either to initial form or to repairs. most repair shops don't spot weld like manufacturers, so replacing mig with tig is no great hardship. hammering, filling and painting is just the same.

the two things i'm interested to see are corrosion and fatigue. the former could offer great improvements with the right alloy selection, but detroit will never allow their rust belt profits to disappear so you can rely on poor alloy selections being made, and fatigue is where the /real/ fun begins. low strength steels are naturally fatigue resistant for stress below ~50% of yield. this allows for a good deal of both slop in both manufacture and design. aluminum has no such fatigue resistance and thus confronts engineers and manufacturers with the errors in their designs in the worst way. with aluminum vehicle construction, we can look forward to generations of structural failures electrolytic corrosion, ordinary corrosion and subsequent recalls as they slowly learn.

and [per my per peeve] as they waste huge amounts of [customer] money [by way of price hikes] on more and more expensive/exotic materials trying to fix these failures before they slowly learn what other industries [aerospace, motorcycles, bicycles] have known for 50+ years - if you get the design/fabrication right, you don't /need/ exotics unless you have to be right on the bleeding edge of performance/weight ratio - like racing.

Let me know when the Japanese and european cars stop rusting.

The frame for a pickup is still going to be steel. Just the body work is going to be aluminium. I doubt there will be aluminium unit body cars. An aluminium frame in a mass market vehicle is highly unlikely, unless someone tries to bring back huge passenger cars. There may be fatigue if someone decides to go that route but it will probably be on the order of what frame rust has done historically.

Be sure to tell that to your congressman who created the problem with his friends. As to the rest... what exotic materials? Aluminium? laff. The cars that have exotic materials are bleeding edge cars.... often referred to as "exotics". By the time they are used in a chevy they aren't exotic any more.