In the future, the automotive field will not only usher in the era of driverless driving, but also the interior of the car will bring a different experience to users. Providing material companies is a "huge" market! Interiors change the experience of car driving. In this era where both face and strength are important, consumers have requirements for the refinement and humanization of car design "from the inside out" Naturally, it is getting higher and higher. If you take a closer look at the interior of a car, you'll see that many materials have been around since the early days of the automobile—leather, wood, metal, and cloth, giving it a luxurious and retro feel. Subsequently, with the development of technology and the appearance of some complex man-made objects such as vinyl and fiberglass, and the use of modified plastics, the interior materials of automobiles have become more complex and durable.

In an era where smartphones dominate everything, the automotive industry is once again turning its attention to car interiors in order to bring users a better in-car experience. In recent years, new materials have been widely used, namely carbon fiber, pseudo carbon fiber, piano black paint, pseudo piano black paint and translucent translucent acrylic resin and other modified plastics, for consumers, the beauty of automotive interior parts , comfort, noise reduction and shock absorption are becoming more and more important. As the overall quality gap between different brands of cars narrows, car interiors have become a new battleground for competition.

Modified plastics are still the mainstream trend in the automotive interior market

After years of development, the proportion of modified plastics in automotive interior materials has increased to more than 60%. As the most important automotive lightweight material, it can not only reduce the quality of parts by about 40%, but also make purchasing The cost is reduced by about 40%, and its main varieties are PP, PS, ABS, PU, PVC, PE, SAN, SMA, etc. Therefore, the amount of modified plastics used in automobiles has risen rapidly in recent years.

PU, PVC, ABS and PP are the most used plastics in foreign automotive interiors. These resins in Japan account for 80% of the resins used in automotive interiors; Western European automotive interiors mostly use PU, accounting for about 80% of interiors. , Automotive interior parts products mainly include instrument panels, door inner panels, door inner panels, steering wheels, seats and other parts.

According to a new report released by Coherent MarketInsights (Seattle), the global automotive interior materials market will witness huge growth by 2024. According to the report, in 2015, the global automobile production exceeded 90 million, and it rose to about 95 million in 2016, of which my country's automobile production and sales exceeded 28 million in 2016. To create a highly favorable environment, if each car is calculated based on 300kg of modified materials, the modified plastic used in the interior is 180kg, which is equivalent to 5.04 million tons of car interiors alone. Please refer to the official data).

The global automotive interior material market is extremely competitive and uniform. Large-scale manufacturers occupy most of the market share, including Sage Automotive Interiors, BASF, Faurecia, Johnson Controls, Lear, Dow Chemical, DK Leather and DuPont, and domestic ones including Kingfa Technology, Hefei Huitong , CGN Juner, Plit, Dawn Group, Rizhisheng and other well-known enterprises. Although the market shares occupied by different companies are different, the general direction of the market's requirements for materials is unified.

If material companies want to win the market, they must do the following:

1. Energy saving and lightweight

Lightweight will be an important principle for interior material selection. The main solutions include the use of low-density materials for door panels and pillars, and the use of microcellular foam materials for instrument panels and door panels. With the lightweight of interiors, the performance requirements of interior materials also have high requirements, such as the strength and modulus of low-density materials, the fluidity and stiffness of thin-walled materials, and the fiber content of glass fiber reinforced materials. Glass fiber retention length and fluidity have new requirements.

2. Green environmental protection

It is necessary to select some low VOCs, spray-free materials and renewable and pure natural materials (such as wood fiber) as much as possible. Environmental protection of materials will be the basis for green cars and green manufacturing.

3. Sensory quality

The end users of passenger car interiors are the drivers and passengers. Therefore, when selecting materials and designing materials, it is necessary to adhere to the human-oriented design principle, and consider the vision, touch, hearing and taste of the passengers.

4. Safety and reliability of automotive interior materials

Pay attention to the selection of materials that are difficult to burn and flame retardant. When choosing flame retardant materials, attention should also be paid to environmental protection. Halogen-free flame retardant materials should be selected to reduce the odor of the air in the car. In addition, it is necessary to consider the strength, heat resistance, wear resistance, etc. of the material, all based on the premise of protecting the safety of drivers and passengers. In general, the development of automobiles in the future will pay more attention to consumer experience and create an environment that is environmentally friendly, comfortable and clean. Let's wait and see how it goes.