The automotive market offers sizeable opportunities for thermoformed parts, and by extension thermoform tooling, but only if processors and toolmakers embrace high-tech mold designs and forming techniques.

Auto OEMs and other vehicle manufacturers are sold on thermoforming for the benefits it provides in large-part design and fabrication, and for its economy. Thermoforming can be used to produce large parts ranging from bedliners and tonneau covers to bumper fascias and rocker panels quickly and at a tooling cost that’s a fraction of that for an injection mold.

Recent developments in tool design, coupled with advances in mold materials like aluminum, make it possible to form increasingly complex parts with dimensional tolerances that are near those of injection molding. Charles Buehler, a Technical Integration Engineer at General Motors Corp., said that the tolerances of thermoformed rocker panels on the Cadillac STS-V were so tight that suppliers of injection molded parts for the car were told to improve their specs.

The opportunities in automotive, however, are not available to every firm that does thermoforming or tooling. As components become more complex technically and aesthetically (a Class-A finish, usually achieved with paint films, is required in many applications), the companies that win contracts will be those that invest in the technologies and R&D necessary to produce high-quality parts and tools.

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