The automotive industry is currently focused on intelligent collaborations, cross-sector vehicle manufacturing, and capital market operations. At the same time, the industry is actively improving standards and regulations (e.g., charging facility evaluation guidelines) to pave the way for future development.
Injection molding for automotive parts demands extremely stringent requirements, as it directly impacts vehicle safety, reliability, durability, and comfort.
- High-Performance Materials: The use of automotive-grade engineering plastics is essential, such as:
PP (Polypropylene) & ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene): Used for interior components, requiring scratch resistance, aging resistance, and low volatility.
PA (Nylon, especially PA66+GF): Used for engine compartment components, requiring high-temperature resistance, high strength, and oil resistance.
PBT (Polybutylene Terephthalate) & PPS (Polyphenylene Sulfide): Used for electrical components requiring resistance to even higher temperatures.
PC (Polycarbonate) & PMMA (Acrylic): Used for optical components (e.g., lamp covers), requiring high light transmittance and weather resistance.
- Key Material Properties:
Temperature Resistance: Must withstand operational environment temperatures, ranging from arctic cold to under-hood high temperatures.
Chemical Resistance: Must resist erosion from chemicals such as engine oil, gasoline, coolant, and cleaning agents.
Low VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) and Low Odor: Especially critical for the passenger cabin, relating to human health and comfort. Must comply with relevant environmental standards.
- Quality Assurance and Inspection:
Strict Dimensional Inspection: Utilization of equipment like CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine), optical comparators, and laser scanning to ensure product dimensions are within drawing tolerances and guarantee assembly compatibility with other parts.
Performance Testing:
Mechanical Properties: Tensile, bending, and impact strength tests.
Environmental Aging Tests: Thermal cycling, UV aging, damp heat tests, etc., simulating the vehicle’s entire lifecycle usage environment.
Chemical Resistance Tests: Immersion in specific chemicals to observe changes.
Visual Inspection: Inspection for defects such as sink marks, flash, weld lines, flow marks, and scratches under standard light sources. Limit samples are typically used as a comparison standard.
Traceability: A comprehensive product traceability system must be established, tracking everything from raw material batches, production time, and equipment numbers to operators. This is crucial for addressing quality issues and potential recalls.
- Industry Standards and Systems: The automotive industry has mandatory rules to follow.
IATF 16949 Quality Management System: This is the entry threshold for the automotive supply chain. All suppliers are typically required to have this certification.
PPAP (Production Part Approval Process): Before mass production, a PPAP documentation package must be submitted to the customer to demonstrate that the production process is capable of consistently manufacturing parts that meet all requirements.
FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis): Systematically analyzes and prevents potential risks during the product design and process design stages.
SPC (Statistical Process Control): Uses statistical methods to analyze and evaluate the production process. It helps detect signs of systematic variations based on feedback and allows for measures to eliminate their influence, maintaining the process in a controlled state affected only by random variations.
Injection molding for automotive components is far more than simply melting plastic and injecting it into a mold. It is a comprehensive, high-tech manufacturing process integrating materials science, precision mold technology, automated control, and quality management systems. Its core objective is to ensure the absolute reliability and consistency of every single part across production runs of millions of units.