HALO Hybrid Automotive Lightweight Optimisation

Car makers are running out of room to cut emissions by improving engines alone, so they must now strip weight from vehicles without driving up costs. This project tackles a practical bottleneck in vehicle manufacturing. Lighter cars burn less fuel, but lightweight materials such as aluminium, carbon fibre, and high-strength steel are expensive. Using them sparingly—only where structural loads demand strength—could save weight and money, but designing such mixed-material structures is currently too slow and unreliable. The researchers aim to develop new computer-modelling techniques that can predict how a multi-material body will behave under crash and load conditions, allowing engineers to place the right material in the right place the first time. If the modelling tools work, manufacturers could produce cars that are both lighter and cheaper to build. That would help meet tightening UK and EU carbon-emission targets without passing large price increases to buyers. The approach could also spread beyond cars to any transport or infrastructure component where weight and cost must be balanced—lorries, trains, aircraft, or even building frames. The project is applied engineering, not fundamental science: its success depends on whether the models can handle the complexity of real production lines and crash safety standards.