Analysis: China’s PC in Automobile Industry

The automobile industry is one PC’s main downstream industries. Currently, China PC market is stable-to-decreasing after hitting highs. How does the automobile industry perform in 2017? How does this industry impact the PC market?

According to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to August, the growth rates of both production and sales of automobile obviously slowed down.

In 2015, China issued policies and charged only 5% purchase tax for vehicles under 1.6L. The purchase tax was adjusted to 7.5% in 2017 and 10% in 2018. All these measures aimed to boost the automobile industry. In the meantime, policies were adjusted to boost the new energy vehicles market.

The new subsidy policies for new energy vehicles was less favorable. The financial subsidy will gradually be canceled by 2020. As a result, the competition in the new energy vehicle market will be fierce. However, as the automobile industry developed much slower than last year, the PC demand in this industry may remain tepid.

On Sep 22, Dow Chemical Company announced the start-up of their integrated world-scale ethylene production facility and ELITE™ polyethylene unit in Texas. These two key milestones will enable Dow to capture benefits from increasing supplies of U.S. shale gas to meet growing demand for flexible packaging.

“These facilities are an integral part of Dow’s investments on the U.S. Gulf Coast to meet increasing consumer-led demand in our core market verticals of packaging, infrastructure and consumer care, and will enable our next level of earnings and cash flow growth,” Andrew Liveris, the executive chairman and CEO of Dow said. 

Lights of cars consist of reflector, lens, shell, light source, electronic circuits, installation accessories, etc. The modified plastics that car lights use are mainly PC, PP, ABS and PMMA. These modified plastics are light and have some good characteristics, including corrosion resistance, good impact resistance, high transparency, good insulation, low thermal conductivity, good mechanical properties, molding processing, etc. They will be used more and more widely.

PC: PC in headlamps accounts for around 50% in plastic materials. In the car lights, PC is mainly used in headlamps, lens of fog lights and outside lens. PC have good features of impact resistance, transparency, mechanical properties, creep properties and electrical insulation performance. Besides, it can be used in a wide range of temperature, with stable size

PP: PP in car lights accounts for around 30% in plastic materials. For instance, PP is commonly used in rear cover, veneer and wire guide groove of taillights as well as shell and rear cover of headlamps. Due to the good performance in electrical insulation, chemical resistance, Fatigue resistance and price, PP becomes the major material of headlamps’ shell.

PBT/ PET: PBT is commonly used in the decorative ring of headlamps and bracket of control apparatus.

PA: Generally speaking, PA6 or PA66 combining with glass fiber is usually used in the ordinary screw adjustment of car lights or bracket, as the aromatic PA has better performance in heat resistance than PA.

PMMA: PMMA has excellent optical properties, light transmittance of which can reach 90% -92%. Besides, its refractive index is 1.49, with good weather resistance, high surface hardness and excellent overall performance, mainly for optical transparent products.