Polymers create new design standards

"Today, up to 15 percent of a vehicle’s weight is accounted for by polymer materials. This figure is likely to rise to a good 20 percent in the next few years," explains Seesing, hinting at the enormous importance of high-tech plastics in the automotive industry of the 21st century. Bayer MaterialScience alone supplies manufacturers with a product range consisting of several hundred different grades. Apart from materials for prefabricated soft-feel components that save downstream production steps, this range also includes raw materials for colored base coats and scratch-resistant clear coats. It also covers insulating materials for reducing noise and vibration, and high-stability sandwich composite elements that are used, for example, in the camper vans made by Hymer AG in south Germany.
Car manufacturers today are creating new design standards, primarily by complying with individual customer wishes. To put it another way, ready-made cars off the peg are simply out. This is something else that Henry Ford would never have dreamed of with his revolutionary Model T, fifteen million of which came off the production line up until 1927. Whereas cars in those days were all identical, car owners nowadays want to give their vehicles a personal touch by adding all kinds of extras. "The advantage of our materials is that even the most complex alternative designs can be produced relatively quickly and easily without having to change over the entire production line," says Seesing, focusing on the enormous design freedom provided by Bayer MaterialScience's materials. "Only in this way is it possible to satisfy the desire of the buyers for customized design through the production of different model variants in very short runs." This development is now being consistently driven forward with the Rinspeed Senso and its sensitive interior.
The Rinspeed Senso is, by the way, not the first plastic car to come from Bayer. In addition to the Leguval car from the post-War period, a stylish all-plastic sports car was developed with BMW in 1967. Very soon afterwards, some of its innovative details found their way onto the production line. At that moment, Seesing's eyes light up: "That car still exists, and is in the possession of Bayer MaterialScience." He fetches out some rather yellowed documents. "We will now register the car as a historic vehicle. I am looking forward to that immensely – just as much as I am to the first test drive in the new Rinspeed Senso." At this point, the past and the future melt together to form a picture of forward-looking automotive design – a picture in which Bayer MaterialScience is truly a key element.

Leverkusen, 2005-03-03