Will Polycarbonate Challenge Glass as the Dominant Glazing Material in the Auto Industry?

This is the conclusion of a 2 part interview series with Dr. Frank Buckel of Bayer Material Sciences. Dr. Buckel is the Director of Automotive Glazing & Sustainability and is a part of the UNECE |GRSG Informal Group on Plastic Glazing. "Since glass has a much higher density, a much higher weight per square meter, we can with polycarbonate glazing reduce CO2 emissions during the use phase of a car and that also helps." [inlinead] Full Interview PDF Automotive IQ: Do you believe that polycarbonate will indeed challenge glass as the dominant glazing material for automobiles? If so, what kind of timeline do you think we’re working with? F.B.: I think it will still take some time. Even if we include these things we are discussing now for the windscreen in the R43 where the tests really mimic the real situation. There is another challenge with the glazing regulations: the R43 regulation doesn’t cover the whole situation globally because we have a different regulation in the US and that makes it more complicated. There are additional regional regulations coming up which are, more or less, not defining new tests, but taking existing tests and also bringing in additional certification for whatever reason. For example, Brazil and India are looking for that. If you look at the approval marks on a glazing part, there are already three on it: the ECE, or UN R43 and the American one with a "DOT" for Department of Transportation, and the Chinese triple C. So if there are more regions coming up with their own one, I guess we have to find areas for them on the glazing parts which are not intended to be transparent! I think we will catch up in the coming years but due to regulations and the problem that they are not globally harmonized, in every case, a decision will be made regarding each part. Compared to the glass market, the plastic glazing market is currently small. I don’t think that glass manufacturers see it as real threat at the moment. But if we can manage to get to a less glass-dominated and more safety-oriented regulation and can harmonize that globally and can get into discussions on how to save costs by assembly … another discussion that helps us, of course, is lightweight. Since glass has a much higher density, a much higher weight per square meter, we can with polycarbonate glazing reduce CO2 emissions during the use phase of a car and that also helps. Automotive IQ: Do you see the German market as being the test center for this and then it rolling out into other markets? F.B.: Definitely, yes, because at the moment, globally we don’t have too many tier suppliers that are able to injection mold plastic glazing parts and coat them. Two of them are based in Germany, that’s Freeglass and Webasto and a third one is coming with PlasticDesign soon. There’s one in the US, and one in Japan, both making roofs. And there is definitely high interest in China. We have already seen plastic glazing in prototype cars there and I guess that will come. Probably in the near future there will be more in China than we have in Germany. This is also a capacity question. You have to invest here in order to have injection molding and coating, possibly in one production line, so you don’t have to pack and transport these parts. Of course, that’s in addition to the regulations and all these steps. You can only grow step by step. Automotive IQ: And China has a very large potential market, so one can understand that they’ll probably be early adopters. F.B.: I’ve seen that in the past. It’s comparable to the chicken and egg problem. The OEMs are asking where’s the production capability that I can have a look at in order to decide to use plastic glazing and the tier supplier says, "Well where’s the project I need in order to invest?" This has happened in the past in some cases, so therefore it takes some time until you see huge growth in this case. Automotive IQ: But you believe plastics will be used at some point? F.B.: Definitely, it will happen because there are a lot of advantages and trends that will help us in this case. And even in the critical situation with these challenges and regulations, we now have several parts on the road. It’s always difficult to look into the future but we’re not the only ones who sincerely believe that this will be the future and also the OEMs are still looking into this very closely and are always asking what is new there and all of them have their prototype projects and are always asking what is happening with the regulations. Automotive IQ: I had concentrated on the lightweight aspect and not on the design aspect. It will be exciting to see what people come out with in the future. F.B.: It’s lightweight, design, safety, and of course, reducing the assembly stages. Those are the driving forces we see there but again it’s a part-to-part decision. For example, certainly the weight is one of the most important things for a roof. The weight is very critical in the roof area because it defines the center of gravity. In case of a heavy glass roof the center of gravity is higher with the need for electronic systems that then keep the car safe on the road. While with lightweight polycarbonate glazing roofs you can save some money for these electronic systems. Automotive IQ: In terms of function integration, is it easier than glass or similar? F.B.: You can normally injection mold what you need. At the moment, you have 2K injection molding which means you are molding the transparent part first, then you back-mold the frame. Normally it has a black frame but that’s just an example, we could make it in any color. Of course, you can integrate anything you want into this black frame: ribs, bosses, and profiles, anything you like. Or the transparent glazing part is just a cover, an outer skin while the second component is more than a frame, a complete part with highest level of functional integration, like what we made in the tailgate we presented at the K Fair -including backlight, spoiler, and covers for lights like stop, rear and turn signals. This looks very stylish because it has this piano black effect or high gloss appearance because you have a transparent material and a back-molded black material. Automotive IQ: Thank you for this in-depth interview In case you missed Part 1 of this interview click here

Will Polycarbonate Challenge Glass as the Dominant Glazing Material in the Auto Industry?

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