Building a Volume Supply Chain for affordable lightweight composite Structures

GKN is building a UK supply chain to mass-produce lightweight composite car parts cheaply enough for automakers to actually use them. Car manufacturers face tightening CO₂ targets, and they have largely exhausted gains from improving engines. The next step is making vehicles lighter, but lightweight composites remain too expensive and slow to produce for high-volume models. This project tackles that bottleneck directly: GKN is assembling a consortium of specialists in manufacturing, joining, and non-destructive testing to create a lean, cost-effective supply chain based in the UK. If successful, the research could make carbon-fibre body panels, chassis components, and structural parts affordable for family cars, not just luxury sports cars. Lighter vehicles use less fuel or battery power, helping meet emissions targets without sacrificing range or performance. The work also locks a high-value, hard-to-relocate manufacturing capability into the UK, strengthening the domestic automotive supply chain. For the driver, the change would be invisible—the car weighs less and costs the same—but the engineering and logistics behind it would be fundamentally different from today’s composite production.