Aug. 8, 2013—BASF was awarded the inaugural Altair Enlighten Award for its development of a thermoplastic composite front seat pan. The award was presented at the 2013 Center for Automotive Research (CAR) Management Briefing Seminars.
The award, created specifically to acknowledge innovations in vehicle lightweighting, was accepted by Martin Jung, senior vice president of global research for structural materials for BASF.
"It is truly an honor to be the recipient of the inaugural Enlighten Award for our work in vehicle lightweighting," said Jung. "At BASF, we understand how important lightweighting innovations are to our customers. We work alongside them to create new design processes and material solutions that deliver measurable, cost-effective and sustainable results."
The Enlighten Award recognizes achievement in weight reduction across the automotive industry and spans all materials and components. BASF's winning thermoplastic composite front seat pan, currently in production, is the world's first production part made from a thermoplastic laminate with continuous fiber reinforcement and is 45 percent lighter than its predecessor.