GE Plastics Helps Hyundai’s QarmaQ ATDV Demonstrate Huge Potential for Environmentally Focused Technologies

With a commitment to bring more environmentally responsible technologies to the marketplace, plus enhance safety, Hyundai Motor Company sought a materials supplier that could help the company create an innovative Advanced Technology Demonstration Vehicle (ATDV). Hyundai wanted to achieve several goals: reduce part weight to lower fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions; achieve new design freedom for increased safety, comfort, and aesthetics; and consolidate parts to lower system cost and achieve additional weight reduction.

Hyundai formed a strategic partnership with GE Plastics to pursue more than 30 different environmentally progressive technologies, which are incorporated into the QarmaQ ATDV.

GE Plastics and Hyundai Motor Company

The Challenge: Enhancing Safety and Environmental Responsibility

A major focus of the ATDV project was pedestrian safety – a growing issue. EEVC WG17 Phase2, Euro NCAP, and JNCA pedestrian impact requirements are among the regulations that automakers strive to comply with. Equally important was the emphasis on lessening environmental impacts. However, these goals had to be achieved without sacrificing performance, style, and beautiful surfaces.

Dr. Kwon Moon-Shik, Hyundai Motor's Vice President of Advanced Technology, said, “We chose to partner with GE Plastics because of their commitment to the environment and their wide range of innovative materials and technical capabilities. Technologies from QarmaQ will provide Hyundai owners with a safer, more environmentally responsible car and a better driving experience.”

The Solution: New Materials Lead to New Horizons

The QarmaQ was designed at Hyundai Motor Europe's Design and Technical Center in Russelsheim and engineered in close cooperation with GE Plastics. QarmaQ utilizes and validates more than 30 key technologies, which will be selectively incorporated into Hyundai’s new models to be rolled out from 2008-2014.

The Crossover Utility Vehicle (CUV) is lighter, stronger, and more economical than any current production CUV in its class. It also offers significant recycling advantages both in construction and eventual disassembly. In short, it is a viable and realistic glimpse of the future potential of personal automotive transport.

The Benefits: Weight Reduction of Up to 50 Percent and Less Environmental Impact

Thanks to extensive use of advanced materials, QarmaQ is 60 kg lighter than a comparable vehicle made with traditional materials. GE Plastics’ Xenoy iQ* and Valox iQ* composites for horizontal body panels significantly reduce part weight - up to 50 percent per part - while maintaining strength equal to that of steel. This lighter-weight cladding contributes to better fuel efficiency and improved power-to-weight ratio for drivers.

Xenoy iQ and Valox iQ resins were developed as part of GE’s ecomagination initiative to address three critical environmental concerns: conserving energy, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and up-cycling or re-using materials such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles. QarmaQ re-uses approximately 900 PET bottles that would otherwise become landfill.

Similar weight savings are achieved by replacing traditional glass with crystal-clear Lexan* polycarbonate (PC) glazing. Extensive use of GE glazing materials provides a weight saving of up to 50 percent compared to glass, while simultaneously allowing more adventurous shapes than flat glass. The glazing features a unique technology from Exatec® that deposits a thin protective layer to add resistance from scratching and the effects of weathering.

Finally GE’s Flexible Noryl* resin technology was used for wire and cable coating. Replacing polyvinyl chloride (PVC), these ultra-thin coatings can reduce cable weight by up to 25 percent.

GreenOrder, an environmental strategy firm based in New York, N.Y., which audited the QarmaQ, estimated that the 60 kg taken out of the QarmaQ means the vehicle would require about 80 fewer liters of diesel per year, and would cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 200 kg.

Another environmentally progressive aspect of the QarmaQ’s design is the use of GE’s paint replacement technologies, including Visualfx* resins and Lexan SLX films, to replace painting operations that can release toxic and greenhouse gases. Driving Greater Design Freedom

With GE Plastics’ materials, QarmaQ designers gained greater freedom to create complex, three-dimensional shapes that could not have been achieved with conventional production methods and materials such as metal and glass.

Departing from conventional car design that combines a lower body and a glass cabin on top, QarmaQ features GE Plastics’ Lexan resin shaped into a panoramic wraparound glazing area, ending in C-shaped side windows that enable innovative helicopter-like downward visibility. Sitting between the two pronounced ‘muscles’ above the front and rear wheels, the side windows - together with the dramatically shaped roof and tailgate glazing areas - are key design features demonstrating the new glazing technology.

”The QarmaQ’s exterior design communicates a commanding presence and a feeling of protection to the occupants,” said Robert Butterfield, Global Market Director, GE Plastics. “The twin domes on the sunroof, facilitated by the new glazing technology, increase the inner space for the rear passengers and create a unique design feature.”

Increasing Pedestrian Safety with the Elastic Front

QarmaQ's Elastic Front* safety system, which encompasses the whole front end of the vehicle, is arguably the world's first global pedestrian protection solution on a CUV. Three energy-absorbing structures are fully integrated underneath the futuristic styling of QarmaQ and this system takes advantage of several advanced materials from GE Plastics that offer inherent energy-absorbing properties. QarmaQ's body panels – also made with GE Plastics materials – have been designed to work in concert with energy-absorbing systems on the underside of these panels to manage and dissipate the force of a pedestrian/CUV collision. A high performance thermoplastic composite (HPPC) hood, with fully integrated impact absorbing structures, also functions as one of the key components in the pedestrian impact energy management.

QarmaQ also introduces new curved and moving side glazing made with Lexan PC resin. The impact resistance and other properties of this material also help increase both occupant and pedestrian safety.

"GE Plastics is committed to developing greener, lighter, and aesthetically pleasing solutions to support our customers in creating vehicles with reduced environmental impact," said Gregory A. Adams, Vice President and General Manager, GE Plastics, Automotive. "By working together we helped Hyundai develop an exciting new CUV that demonstrates greater environmental responsibility as well as improved safety, dramatic design, and high performance."

Details at: www.geplastics.com

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