China Automotive Composites Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

The automotive industry has been focusing on vehicle weight for decades as vehicle weight have direct impact on driving dynamics and fuel consumption. Due to the high cost of potential lightweight solutions and consumers’ limited willingness to pay for weight reduction in automotive, the use of costly lightweight materials has so far been limited.

As governments from around the world are implementing stringent emission regulations and even are planning to set even higher emissions standards in the coming years, the importance of lightweight materials will increase.

According to European directives and standards (2000/53/EC-End Life 0f Vehicles), US Department of Transportation, and US EPA, the automotive manufacturing industry has to follow certain norms in regarding environmentally friendly recycling and dismantling of vehicles, higher fuel efficiency standards, and increase in use of recyclable materials which offers high potential for the China automotive composites market to grow during the forecasted period.

China is one of the leaders in the global automotive fiberglass market with a significant share of 28% by the end of 2020. China generates the highest revenue for fiberglass in the Asia-Pacific region. The automotive fiberglass market in the country has a high growth potential driven by a huge increase in the demand for lightweight automotive vehicles. The growth of this market is also driven by the technological developments in the manufacturing process of fiberglass.

Fiberglass is the most preferred and economic composite material in the industrial and automotive sectors. The reinforcement fiber materials employed in the automotive industry are usually made of glass fibers. Fiberglass is lightweight, has relatively high tensile strength and is easy to handle and manufacture. Fiberglass is widely used in the automotive industry due to its lightweight and high durability.

With technological advancements Chinese manufacturers are expected to see raise in demand for car exports which intern will increase demand for automotive composites as manufacturers are looking to reduce car weight in order to keep up with emission norms across the world. The automobile industry is highly dependent on the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, owing to the high emissions of the automotive units. The move by the EPA to raise the miles per gallons (mpg) standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025, has actually helped the industry, as the automotive industry concluded that the only way to get to those mileage standards is by manufacturing lightweight vehicles. The traditional metal die casting industry is also facing threat from the newly emerging composites market as composites provide the same physical properties and are much lighter than metal castings. Companies have started using materials like carbon fiber and glass fiber composites to make vehicles lightweight and fuel-efficient. The usage of glass fiber composites aids in reducing vehicle by 25%. Apart from carbon fiber, automobile manufacturers have been using glass fiber composites in the manufacturing of numerous automotive components. With the demand for lightweight vehicles increasing rapidly in developing economies, the market for carbon fiber composites is projected to grow at a fast pace during the forecast period.