Cars of the Future: Designers

Reported February 2006

DETROIT (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Imaginations are let loose on car designs of the future. Now, young, creative minds are pushing automotive design to its limits, using every shape, color and size in their creations.

Designers and engineers who take their dreams and turn them into reality create these new cars of the future.

Chris Piscitelli's zest for cars started when he was just a kid. "My father is an old car enthusiast, so I grew up around it." Piscitelli is a design student at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. As he got older, he learned his love of cars could be linked with his artistic talent.

"I have a passion for cars and design, so it was just natural for me to get into automotive design," Piscitelli says.

Now, Chris is part of a future generation of car designers learning to put new materials to use in exciting, futuristic ways. "We're supposed to stress the use of a lot of the new plastics and things that you do with plastics that you couldn't necessarily do with say, you know, steel," Piscitelli tells Ivanhoe.

Plastic is easy to mold so using materials engineering, Chris used the advantages of plastic by heating it so the long, spaghetti-like molecules slide over each other to form new shapes, giving us durable, cost-effective, lightweight plastics with sleek curves.

Jim Kolb, vice president of American Plastics Council in Troy says, "The limitations that some metals have in forming parts -- are overcome with the use of plastics."

Plastic concepts have caught the eye of car companies who see the future of car design in students like Piscitelli. "We're able to push the limit with the project, and so to make something that was, you know, kind of futuristic and, you know, out there, but also could be seen on the road," Piscitelli says. His concept car may not be road-ready right now, but it's a nice sneak peak at what the future holds.

Car manufacturers are working to make affordable plastic cars available to consumers.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Automotive Learning Center
1800 Crooks Rd. Troy, MI 48084
248-244-8920

For more information on engineering, contact:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
IEEE-USA
1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202
Washington, D.C. 20036-5104
(202) 785-0017
ieeeusa@ieee.org
http://www.ieee.org

American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(800) 843-2763
(973) 882-1170
infocentral@asme.org
http://www.asme.org/

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