Thermoplastic Overmoulding for Structural Composite Automotive Applications (TOSCAA)

A car's structural frame—parts like the seat cross-member or door ring—could soon be made by injecting molten plastic directly onto a pre-formed metal or composite skeleton, fusing them into a single lightweight part. This matters because car manufacturers need to cut weight to meet emissions targets and extend electric vehicle range, but current methods for making structural parts from lightweight materials are too slow or expensive for mass production. Thermoplastic overmoulding—where a solid reinforcement is placed in a mould and plastic is injected around it—could replace heavier steel assemblies and speed up production compared to thermoset composites, which require long curing times. If TOSCAA succeeds, the technology could be deployed across multiple vehicle components, reducing weight and manufacturing cost. The same process could transfer to rail and aerospace, where lightweighting is equally critical. The project is applied engineering: it takes existing materials and processes and integrates them into a production-ready system, demonstrating that the method works at scale and at speed.