VARCITY - Vehicle ARchitectures for CITY cars

A new manufacturing process will stamp out lightweight carbon-fibre car bodies as quickly and cheaply as today’s steel ones, using a fully UK-based supply chain. The problem is cost and speed. Carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) is strong and light, cutting vehicle weight and CO₂ emissions, but it remains too expensive and slow to produce for high-volume city cars. Current methods rely on hand-laying or slow curing, which cannot compete with the seconds-per-part cycle of steel stamping. VARCITY aims to remove those barriers by developing fast, automated production techniques and a complete UK supply chain from raw fibre to finished body shell. If the project succeeds, premium city cars could shed hundreds of kilograms without sacrificing safety, slashing fuel use or extending battery range. More broadly, a cost-competitive CFRP supply chain would let UK manufacturers apply the same lightweighting to vans, buses, and even aerospace components. The project also builds the engineering skills base needed to meet the UK automotive industry’s long-term CO₂ and sustainability targets. This is applied manufacturing research with a clear commercial endpoint: making lightweight structures affordable at scale.