Carbon fibre specialist SGL (Wiesbaden / Germany; www.sglcarbon.com) and Benteler Automobiltechnik (Paderborn / Germany) have established a joint venture for the development, production and marketing of components based on carbon fibre-reinforced composites (CFRP) for the automotive industry. Each company has a 50% stake in the jv, established in February, which is called Benteler SGLand is based in Paderborn.

The jv will initially develop structural and chassis parts of CFRP, for example B-columns, crash boxes, bumpers and axles. The second, medium-term objective is to start up series production of these products for the automotive industry.

The high manufacturing costs of CFRP components have so far only permitted high-performance applications in motor racing and custom vehicle construction, but not in production-line vehicles. However, large-scale automated production of these components would, in the opinion of the two companies, reduce manufacturing costs to a level that would make production-line manufacture viable.

Benteler Automotive, a business division of the Benteler Group (Paderborn; www.benteler.com), is an internationally operating automotive supplier of components, modules and systems to improve ride, handling, safety and emissions.