Remember this exchange from 1967's The Graduate?
Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin Braddock: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
These days, if Ben were to get advice from Mr. McGuire about a new field to stake his future on, the answer could be "carbon fiber."
The miracle material, two-thirds the weight of steel yet five times stronger, is increasingly finding its way into automobiles. If a means can be found to use it in mass-production vehicles, it would result in dramatically improved fuel economy without resorting to exotic new fuels and engine technologies. Replacing the steel in a car with carbon fiber would shave hundreds of pounds off its weight.
Automakers are betting they can make it work, BMW in particular. After jetting into New York from Munich last week for a retirement dinner, BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer kept heading west to Washington State, tacking another 6,000 miles onto his trip to open a new factory there co-owned by BMW that manufactures carbon fibers. That's a lot of frequent flyer miles for an unproven technology.
Carbon fiber consists of thin strands of carbon woven into a yarn that in turn can be made into cloth. The cloth in turn is then laid over a mold and stiffened with resin to produce a sheet of material with remarkable properties.
Carbon fiber has found its way into fishing rods and tennis rackets, and in larger quantities into airplanes like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the bodies of Formula One racecars. A couple of high-end performance cars like the BMW M6 and Chevrolet Corvette have carbon fiber body panels, and the material is used for interior trim in the place of wood veneers or aluminum.
But high-volume applications have eluded carbon fibers. For one thing, the material is expensive. According to published estimates, carbon fiber costs about $10 a pound. That's a lot cheaper than the $150 a pound it cost a decade ago but still ten to 20 times more than a pound of steel.
For another, the construction process is laborious and can't easily be scaled up. Curing time can take hours. Moreover, carbon fibers can't be recycled because carbon composites don't corrode.
That hasn't deterred BMW, which is investing $100 million to build a carbon fiber factory in Washington State, 180 miles east of Seattle. The factory is co-owned and operated by a German company, SGL Carbon SE. Production of carbon fiber thread is starting this month. The fibers will be processed into lightweight fabrics at a second joint venture site in Germany.
