IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/itsdav/qt85p4x0jn.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Review of Technical Literature and Trends Related to Automobile Mass-Reduction Technology

Author

Listed:
  • Lutsey, Nicholas

Abstract

Reducing the size, or mass, of automobiles is an important technology objective for fuel economy, carbon dioxide emissions, and vehicle performance. The authors review ongoing automotive trends for vehicle mass optimization to better characterize where automobile size is headed. They find that automakers are using a variety of advanced materials in new vehicle models such as aluminum, magnesium and plastic. Several studies, along with automakers’ announcements, suggest mass-reduction technology could achieve up to a 20 percent decrease in the mass of new vehicles in the 2015-1010 timeframe. Greater potential for future CO2 emission reductions, however, requires commercialization of more advanced mass-optimization technologies that go beyond near-term incremental approaches, and could yield mass reductions of 30 percent or greater. The authors suggest that commitments by automakers to deploy mass-reduction technology offer several policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Lutsey, Nicholas, 2010. "Review of Technical Literature and Trends Related to Automobile Mass-Reduction Technology," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt85p4x0jn, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
  • Handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt85p4x0jn
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/85p4x0jn.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher R. Knittel, 2011. "Automobiles on Steroids: Product Attribute Trade-Offs and Technological Progress in the Automobile Sector," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3368-3399, December.
    2. Knittel, Christopher R., 2009. "Automobiles on Steroids: Product Attribute Trade-O�s and Technological Progress in the Automobile Sector," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt2nt1r1x1, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Celalettin Yuce & Fatih Karpat & Nurettin Yavuz & Gökhan Sendeniz, 2014. "A Case Study: Designing for Sustainability and Reliability in an Automotive Seat Structure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(7), pages 1-24, July.
    2. Triantafyllopoulos, Georgios & Kontses, Anastasios & Tsokolis, Dimitrios & Ntziachristos, Leonidas & Samaras, Zissis, 2017. "Potential of energy efficiency technologies in reducing vehicle consumption under type approval and real world conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P1), pages 365-373.
    3. Lewis, Anne Marie & Kelly, Jarod C. & Keoleian, Gregory A., 2014. "Vehicle lightweighting vs. electrification: Life cycle energy and GHG emissions results for diverse powertrain vehicles," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 13-20.
    4. Rootzén, Johan & Johnsson, Filip, 2016. "Paying the full price of steel – Perspectives on the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the steel industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 459-469.
    5. Giulia Sandrini & Marco Gadola & Daniel Chindamo & Andrea Candela & Paolo Magri, 2023. "Exploring the Impact of Vehicle Lightweighting in Terms of Energy Consumption: Analysis and Simulation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-31, July.
    6. Mayyas, Ahmad T. & Qattawi, Ala & Mayyas, Abdel Raouf & Omar, Mohammed A., 2012. "Life cycle assessment-based selection for a sustainable lightweight body-in-white design," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 412-425.
    7. Zhou, Wenbin & Cleaver, Christopher J. & Dunant, Cyrille F. & Allwood, Julian M. & Lin, Jianguo, 2023. "Cost, range anxiety and future electricity supply: A review of how today's technology trends may influence the future uptake of BEVs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    8. Mayyas, Ahmad & Qattawi, Ala & Omar, Mohammed & Shan, Dongri, 2012. "Design for sustainability in automotive industry: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 1845-1862.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yu, Rujie & Ren, Huanhuan & Liu, Yong & Yu, Biying, 2021. "Gap between on-road and official fuel efficiency of passenger vehicles in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    2. Sallee, James M. & Slemrod, Joel, 2012. "Car notches: Strategic automaker responses to fuel economy policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 981-999.
    3. Soren T. Anderson & Ian W. H. Parry & James M. Sallee & Carolyn Fischer, 2011. "Automobile Fuel Economy Standards: Impacts, Efficiency, and Alternatives," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(1), pages 89-108, Winter.
    4. Michel Freyssenet & Bruno Jetin, 2019. "The deregulation of employment and finance: the Big Three in crisis," CEPN Working Papers halshs-02020051, HAL.
    5. Thomas Klier & Joshua Linn, 2011. "Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards and the Market for New Vehicles," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 445-462, October.
    6. Lawrence Goulder & Mark Jacobsen & Arthur van Benthem, "undated". "Unintended Consequences from Nested State & Federal Regulations: The Case of the Pavley Greenhouse-Gas-per-Mile Limits," Discussion Papers 08-049, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Valerie A. Ramey & Daniel J. Vine, 2011. "Oil, Automobiles, and the US Economy: How Much Have Things Really Changed?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2010, volume 25, pages 333-367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Karplus, Valerie J. & Paltsev, Sergey & Babiker, Mustafa & Reilly, John M., 2013. "Applying engineering and fleet detail to represent passenger vehicle transport in a computable general equilibrium model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 295-305.
    9. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Jacobsen, Mark R. & van Benthem, Arthur A., 2012. "Unintended consequences from nested state and federal regulations: The case of the Pavley greenhouse-gas-per-mile limits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 187-207.
    10. Lutsey, Nicholas P., 2010. "Review of technical literature and trends related to automobile mass-reduction technology," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt9t04t94w, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    11. Lawrence H. Goulder & Mark R. Jacobsen & Arthur A. van Benthem, 2009. "Unintended Consequences from Nested State & Federal Regulations: The Case of the Pavley Greenhouse-Gas-per-Mile Limits," NBER Working Papers 15337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Zheng, Jihu & Zhou, Yan & Yu, Rujie & Zhao, Dongchang & Lu, Zifeng & Zhang, Peng, 2019. "Survival rate of China passenger vehicles: A data-driven approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 587-597.
    13. Ioannis Bellos & Mark Ferguson & L. Beril Toktay, 2017. "The Car Sharing Economy: Interaction of Business Model Choice and Product Line Design," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(2), pages 185-201, May.
    14. Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hémous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency, and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 1-51.
    15. McConnell, Virginia, 2013. "The New CAFE Standards: Are They Enough on Their Own?," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-14, Resources for the Future.
    16. Rik L. Rozendaal & Herman R. J. Vollebergh, 2021. "Policy-Induced Innovation in Clean Technologies: Evidence from the Car Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 9422, CESifo.
    17. Huang, Robert & Kahn, Matthew E., 2024. "An economic analysis of United States public transit carbon emissions dynamics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    18. Klier, Thomas & Linn, Joshua, 2013. "Technological Change, Vehicle Characteristics, and the Opportunity Costs of Fuel Economy Standards," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-40, Resources for the Future.
    19. Sprei, Frances & Karlsson, Sten, 2013. "Energy efficiency versus gains in consumer amenities—An example from new cars sold in Sweden," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 490-499.
    20. Yuche Chen & Ruixiao Sun & Xuanke Wu, 2021. "Estimating Bounds of Aerodynamic, Mass, and Auxiliary Load Impacts on Autonomous Vehicles: A Powertrain Simulation Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-13, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Engineering;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt85p4x0jn. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucdus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.