The automotive industry is a huge market for textiles, in 2003 the European automotive industry consumed nearly 45500 tons of interior textiles for car seats, head rests, door covers, headliners and parcel shelves. To this figure can be added the amount of technical textiles and 'semi-technical' textiles used by the car industry, including fabrics for air bags, seat belts, moulded carpets, V-and timing belts, and fabrics in the engine compartment. The final textile consumption figure is estimated to be three times as much as the figure above for passenger cars in Europe. All such textiles are produced in Europe without any low price imports from the Far East. This paper demonstrates the growing importance of car production in Eastern Europe and the evolution of this textiles market which is expected to grow along with the region's disposable income. Figures from a 'Study on European Automotive Interior 2003' reveal that woven fabrics dominate this sector with 51.05 % of interior automotive fabrics produced by this method. Circular knits are the second largest fabric group, with a 19 % share of this market. Leading the way are circular knitted velour fabrics with 15.05 % and circular flat fabrics with nearly 4 %. Meanwhile warp knitted fabrics are the third most popular group with a 12.34 % market share. Leather is next with 10.61 % while nonwovens and Malimo stitchbonded fabrics have 3.83 % market share and are used in headliners. Lastly, Alcantara has just a 1.62 % share and is used in seating and door covers, while needlefelts are used for parcel shelves. Around 88 % of the fabrics used in the automotive industry are used in the seating and door covers, 9.5 % in headliners and 2.2 % for parcel shelf covers. It was found that polyester dominates the raw material used in fabrics in the automotive industry with an actual share of 78 %. A further increasing demand of fabrics by automotives in the greater European area is to be expected because of the rapidly growing production of vehicles in Eastern Europe. In addition to new vehicular technology, it is also likely that new raw materials will be used in automotive textiles.


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    Title :

    Autos to drive knitted fabric use


    Additional title:

    Maschenwaren in automobilen Textilien


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Knitting International ; 111 , 1321 December 2004/January 2005 ; 40-42


    Publication date :

    2004


    Size :

    3 Seiten, 9 Bilder, 1 Tabelle



    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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