Comparison Between the Default Car Model with Weight-Improved Car

I thought I should try to analyze, what if we change the heavy material in our car with the low density material such as aluminium alloys. Would it affect our safety? Yes it would, even though aluminium alloys are lighter, but its strength is lower compared to steel. Furthermore, some process for sheet metal such as hemming and stamping will be a bit difficult. This is because aluminium can easily crack under those process. However, even though it is difficult, it doesn't means that it is impossible. Visit the Aluminium Association on the documentation to explain the details in the manufacturing process for aluminium.

Changing a car to lightweight materials has a lot of advantage. First, it lowers the car fuel consumption. Second, it lowers the car kinetic energy, thus it will make the car safer in a crash event. In this simulation, I attempt to swap 90% of the steel in the model to aluminium. The weight reduction is around 300 kg of kerb weight.

The figure shows the energy balance between the default model and the improved model.

The top car in this video shows the default model while the bottom car is the weight improved car.