BASF wins inaugural Altair Enlighten Award for innovation in automotive lightweighting

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich., Aug. 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- BASF, The Chemical Company, was awarded with the inaugural Altair Enlighten Award for its development of a thermoplastic composite front seat pan. The award was presented to BASF at the 2013 Center for Automotive Research (CAR) Management Briefing Seminars.

The Altair Enlighten Award, the automotive industry's first award program created specifically to acknowledge innovations in vehicle lightweighting, was accepted by Martin Jung, Ph.D., 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 innovation was the thermoplastic composite front seat pan. Currently in production on the Opel Astra OPC, this seat pan is the world's first production part made from a thermoplastic laminate with continuous fiber reinforcement and is 45 percent lighter than its predecessor. 

The ten finalists, representing product innovations in metal, high tech fiber components and other composites, were selected by the judging committee, chaired by Jay Baron, Ph.D., President and CEO of CAR, and director of CAR's Coalition for Automotive Lightweighting Materials (CALM), and comprised of  experts from the worldwide automotive community.

The award will honor the greatest achievements in weight savings each year. It also aims to inspire interest from industry, engineering, policymakers, educators, students and the public; to create further competition for new ideas and to provide an incentive to share technological advances.

The award aligns with the goals of CAR's CALM initiative to support the cost-effective integration of mixed materials to achieve significant reductions in vehicle mass through the collaborative efforts of the material sectors and auto manufacturers.

About BASF's automotive solutions 

The automotive industry is one of BASF's key customer industries, accounting for up to 15 percent of the Group's total sales. As the world's leading automotive supplier in the chemical industry, BASF is recognized as a reliable and competent partner by carmakers, suppliers, and the after-sales market. With a strong presence in Europe, Africa, North and South America, as well as in Asia, BASF has a global industry network. It supplies and develops functional materials and solutions that contribute to the vehicles of today and of the future. From engineering plastics, polyurethane and specialty foams, coatings and fuel additives to catalysts, battery materials, pigments, synthetic lubricants, coolants, brake fluids and chemicals for leather and textiles, BASF supplies a broad range of products for use in the automotive industry. Sales to the automotive industry in 2012 were €9.5 billion. To find more information on BASF's solutions to the automotive market, please visit us here. 

BASF - The Chemical Company

BASF Corporation, headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, is the North American affiliate of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF has more than 16,600 employees in North America, and had sales of $18.5 billion in 2012. For more information about BASF's North American operations, visit www.basf.us.

BASF is the world's leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from chemicals, plastics, performance products and crop protection products to oil and gas. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. Through science and innovation, we enable our customers in nearly every industry to meet the current and future needs of society. Our products and solutions contribute to conserving resources, ensuring nutrition and improving quality of life. We have summed up this contribution in our corporate purpose: We create chemistry for a sustainable future. BASF had sales of €72.1 billion in 2012 and more than 110,000 employees as of the end of the year. Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com. 

SOURCE BASF