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Originally Posted by darcane
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That's true, but the price also went up considerably from the C6, whereas Porsche did not increase the MSRP by as much going from 987 to 981. Okay, the C6 also got a real interior, but 6000 bucks is a lot.
I believe aluminum still hasn't really fallen in price, either the aluminum industry needs some efficiency improvements (maybe via thermoelectric tech?) or the price of electricity needs to go down for cars to really start using a lot more aluminum, especially where it counts most, in the frame.
I noticed that a Nissan Sentra Zipcar I drove had incredibly thin steel panels that I could dent with my bare hands, those can't weigh much. I know that switching hood and trunk to carbon fiber saves something like 30 pounds for my car, which isn't a whole lot. Switching the doors to carbon fiber saves like 30 but if you add back in the crash reinforcement bars that drops. All in all the bodywork probably only weighs 100-200 pounds on most cars, while the steel frame is easily several times that. The Mclaren MP4-12C carbon fiber tub (without the front and rear aluminum subframes) is already 176 pounds. The Evora has a 440lb aluminum chassis.