Automotive engineering lightweight functional and novel materials

The state-of-art of lightweight materials for automobiles is reviewed

Representative materials are introduced with potential automotive applications, particularly on electric vehicles

Given the recent advances in manufacturing, modeling, and characterization, both pros and cons of materials are summarized

A quest for lightweight materials creates many challenges and opportunities not only for existing conventional metallic alloys but also for novel strategies of achieving lightweighting goals through structural engineering, including metal-matrix composites, laminates, sandwich structures, and bionic-inspired archetypes

Depending on the density and the material properties, different materials reach various levels of strength and/or stiffness

Material lightweight design can be done by the use of a single material with a high specific property or by a combination of materials to utilize the best of different materials which are combined to a composite or hybrid