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In the automotive industry, materials are evaluated on their relative costs and value-added potential. In order to achieve commercial success, a material must offer a favorable balance of performance advantages and economics relative to incumbent technologies. In the business development cycle, there is often a great deal of excitement surrounding a new material formulation believed to offer improved functionality. Unfortunately, few of these technologies continue on a promising substitution trend, either because of inherent manufacturing challenges, or other market factors such as economics of scale required for market-entry pricing. The average design to market investment for a vehicle platform is $2.5 - $3 billion, with daily costs exceeding $1 million. Given such cost penalties, it is exceedingly valuable for the developers to understand the existing and potential cost structures involved in material selection in order to make efficient, effective, and informed strategic decisions.

This paper will explore the extended impact of advanced body technologies in two ways; laterally, by potentially reducing the requirements of other vehicle systems and horizontally, in terms of the life cycle costs of operation. Variants of Steel, Aluminum, and polymer composite designs will be explored. Traditional cost model projections of direct manufacturing costs and mass will be compared with the impact of functional system interrelationships and vehicle performance in order to assess the total vehicle costs and benefits of alternative systems. This analytical approach can give material suppliers and automakers a framework for understanding the various cost tradeoffs in the use of alternative material systems for automotive bodies-in-white, in terms of total cost, mass, and fuel economy. Through this understanding, better decisions about how best to invest development resources can be made.