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Carbon Fiber Wars: Daimler Partners with Toray

Following the big fuss German carmaker BMW created around its future line of vehicles and all the carbon fiber parts that will go into then, the rivals from Daimler retaliated with the announcement of a partnership with Japanese textile maker Toray Industries, for the same purpose.

According to Toray spokesman Yoshitaka Yamagata, talking for Autonews, the 2013 Mercedes Benz SL-Klasse will be the first to get carbon fiber parts. The two companies will create reinforced plastic materials by using the carbon fiber.

"We are working systematically to make our vehicles even cleaner and more economical. Intelligent lightweight construction has a major role to play here. With its specialist know-how in the fields of carbon-fibre and CFRP Toray is a strong international partner for our initiatives. This is a major step, as the importance of these materials is set to increase significantly in the future," Thomas Weber, Daimler member of the board said in a release.

"Lighter vehicles help us to uphold the high standard of sustainability which we set for our products. With BlueEFFICIENCY – our measures for sustainable mobility – we are leveraging every aspect: from environmentally responsible and economical drive systems to sophisticated aerodynamics and integrated energy management to intelligent, lightweight construction," Weber added.

Toray is the world’s largest manufacturer of carbon fibers and Japan's largest producer of synthetic fiber. The cooperation with Daimler marks the company's first take at the automotive sector, after the carbon yarn created for Ferrari.

As a result of the announcement, Toray shares increased 2 percent, beating by far the 2.8 drop in the benchmark Nikkei average.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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