After Audi gave us its Techday video on the lightweight materials being used in its car design, BMW is now on the job, too, releasing these pics of its lightweight products. As environmental issues makes themselves felt in the world of car manufacturing, high performance and luxury manufacturers are increasingly turning to lighter materials to keep fuel consumption down, but the revs up.

These images are being released in occasion of the 2011 BMW Group Innovation Day and show the various carbonfibre and aluminium parts that are being used by the company: from seats to bonnets, steering columns, doors, pedals and alloy wheels. We’re not in the market for either an Audi or a BMW at this stage, and remain skeptical at times on the whole reduced emissions and fuel consumption debate (somewhat like John Elkann’s statements from Fiat).

But this is interesting technology and has been the saving grace so far for high performance supercars. They might not be seriously affected in the near future by the green tinge overtaking the car industry, especially given their limited production numbers, but the manufacturers are certainly investing to keep themselves at the cutting edge of technology, expensive though it might be.

BMW lightweight car design: materials

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