Altair announced the winners of the 2024 Altair Enlighten Award presented in association with the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) at a ceremony earlier this week at the CAR Management Briefing Seminars. The award honors the greatest sustainability and lightweighting advancements that successfully reduce carbon footprint, mitigate water and energy consumption, and leverage material reuse and recycling efforts.

“The Enlighten Award is the leading award highlighting the automotive industry’s finest innovations in sustainable technology,” said James Scapa, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Altair. “This year’s winners can consider themselves the best innovators meeting those challenging targets.”

As the world demands safer, more efficient, and innovative products and processes, Altair says it aims to transform design and decision-making by applying AI-powered engineering, high-performance computing, and optimization throughout product lifecycles. By helping customers accomplish these goals, the company says it helps to reduce the environmental impact of goods and services across a broad array of industries worldwide.

“Each edition of the Enlighten Award showcases the products, processes, and organizations that are ushering in the next generation of groundbreaking automotive technology,” said Alan Amici, President and CEO of the Center for Automotive Research.

In the Sustainable Process category, the winners are BMW M GmbH, AMC GmbH, Bcomp Ltd., Gradel Lightweight Sàrl, and Lasso Ingenieurgesellschaft for the BMW M Visionary Materials Seat, which focuses on circular design principles. The seat features a “monomaterial” lightweight design that emphasizes using sustainable, renewable materials such as recycled polyester textile, flax fiber BioComposite, and biogenic leather alternatives. Where possible, petroleum-based raw materials through bio-based materials were made from algae and plant-based fillers such as chalk and cork. The composite can be made from carbon, basalt, glass fiber, or natural fibers.

The runners-up in the category are Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada and PPG Industries for the EPIC200X electrocoat, which enhances corrosion protection for automotive bodies while significantly reducing environmental impact. At the Toyota facility, the new product and application process enables a total reduction of 3500 t (3860 ton) of CO2 emissions per year. The amount of applied product by vehicle by 0.6 kg (1.3 lb), and the new application process saves 5626 MW·h of energy and 1,843,000 gal (6,976,500 L) of water per year.

In the Sustainable Product category, DuPont was the winner for its Betamate broad bake adhesive. The technology helps reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions during vehicle body manufacturing by allowing adhesives to cure at lower temperatures, saving energy via reduced e-coat oven temperatures and shorter oven cycle times. The technology also eliminates the need for cold storage thanks to a special formulation that extends shelf life.

The category runner-up was Bridgestone Americas for its Turanza EV grand touring tire. It is manufactured with 50% renewable and recycled materials—one of the highest percentages among commercially available replacement tires—and features the company’s Enliten technology to optimize performance and improve tire life. By 2050, Bridgestone is aiming for all its tires to be composed of 100% renewable and recycled materials.

The Module Lightweighting category winners are Syensqo and General Motors for the collaborative design of a high-performance thermoplastic battery module structure that delivers a 37% weight reduction and a 25% cost savings compared to traditional aluminum. Key features include enhanced vehicle performance through precision injection molding, streamlined component consolidation for simplified assembly, and a unique cell-lock feature that stabilizes battery cells. The design eliminates multiple components and processes, further optimizing efficiency.

The runners-up in the category are Toyota Motor Co., US Farathane, and BASF Corp. for the Toyota Tacoma second-row composite seat structure. It features 30% less mass than the previous generation of steel seats and 20% less mass than the resin seats in the 2022 Toyota Tundra. The new seat structure consolidated more than 55 into just four parts that take less time to be injection molded and shipped.

In the Enabling Technology category, the winner is CompositeEdge GmbH for its next-gen sustainable high-performance structures. Aiming to minimize overall material usage, the company uses natural fibers such as flax and hemp blended with plastic to form high-performance composites that can support the manufacturing of car body panels, interior trim, chassis parts, and suspension elements without additional adhesives. The company says its use of natural fiber composites significantly reduces carbon emissions and energy consumption compared to synthetic materials.

The runner-up in the category is Teijin Automotive Technologies for its fully automated preforming process that enables complex CFRP (carbon fiber-reinforced plastic) parts. It enables the mass production of carbon fiber preforms to be used in automotive components—in this case, a vehicle door. The precision of the automated process optimizes the amount of material used and recycles a small amount of waste. The previous labor-intensive process was unsuitable for mass production and often resulted in waste due to human error. The new process is much more efficient, reducing required labor by 20%.

Honorable Mention in the category goes to Bemis Manufacturing Co. and BASF Corp. for the development of large hydraulic tanks for compact excavators using BASF’s polyamide. The eco-efficient solution delivered both environmental savings, with reductions in life-cycle CO2 emissions, and reduced life-cycle cost. By combining injection molding and vibration welding, the approach resulted in 5% mass savings and 20% lower costs compared to traditional roto molding.

The winners in the Future of Lightweighting category are WEAV3D, Braskem, and Clemson Composites Center for cost-effective lightweight vehicle body structures. The partners developed a composite lattice-reinforced polypropylene sheet tailorable to match the performance of any vehicle body structure on the market. Manufactured with a high-rate, highly automated forming cycle that produces more parts using less energy, the new sheet costs 50% less and weighs 23% less than CFPA6 (nylon 6) organosheets—continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic sheets containing primarily carbon- or glass-fiber fabrics. The material boasts a 62% reduction in trim scrap by weight. Compared to steel, the polypropylene sheet weighs between 60-70% less and features superior energy absorption and shape recovery.

The runner-up in the category was Carsolia Composites Corp. for its patent-pending composite suspension coil spring that’s 50% lighter than steel. The carbon-fiber composite material also has 50% less CO2 equivalent per kilogram vs. steel, resulting in a 75% overall reduction of CO2 emissions. Manufactured with an efficient production process that supports high-volume vehicle production, the spring enables unique appearance design possibilities. The company says it is ideally suited for battery electric vehicle platforms and is a direct replacement for current vehicles as a “bolt-on solution,” with no redesign needed.

The winner in the Responsible AI category was Dow Inc. for its sustainable Specflex polyurethane solutions focus on developing and using cleaner raw materials and unique design principles to optimize performance. Achieving equivalent mechanical and ageing properties compared to traditional formulations, these solutions are significantly safer and more sustainable—with over 50% lower total volatile organic compounds, 60% lower formaldehyde, and 80% lower acetaldehyde. An AI aldehyde predictive model captures the factors contributing to odor and translates complicated non-linear into real-world-performance features—enabling outcome prediction.