[On4Wheels]

The streaks and lines of wooden panel do mesmerize us. That is why, we choose wood over any other materials to furnish our homes. Over time, we found many alternatives to wood such as PVC, concrete etc. However, we felt that something is missing in those substitutes: the life in it. Then, we added a wooden look and feel to mimic the life of wood. In short, we are mad about the wood in furnishing our home (We want the alternative materials also should have the wooden feel). Let us, step out of the house and get in to our second home: the cars. The dashboards of a car is mostly made of plastics: some are soft ones, some are hard ones; some are glossy, some are matte. No wood or wooden texture! Do you find the plastic dashboards boring? Are you missing luxurious looks of the wooden dash board?



There are some luxury cars like Porsche that offers wooden interior packages to its customers. Also, you can find some painted faux wood grain in some of the budget cars. But these wooden dashboards (inserts) are just isolation in automotive industry. Despite of its mesmerizing look and feel, I feel, car manufactures are not giving much thought in considering wood as interior material. Providing some wooden inserts itself would elate the look and feel of the car. What could be the real reason behind discarding wood despite of being a natural material? Why do manufactures choose costly carbon fiber instead of wood? Do you think wood as a material does not have any future in car Industry? Why wood is loosing its market when we move towards environment friendly materials?

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by On4Wheels

What could be the real reason behind discarding wood despite of being a natural material? Why do manufactures choose costly carbon fiber instead of wood? Do you think wood as a material does not have any future in car Industry? Why wood is loosing its market when we move towards environment friendly materials?

If you are focusing on the use of natural wood, then here are the reasons why you won't find it on mass produced cars:

• You really need well seasoned and well treated wood to be fit enough to use in a car
• Design and production consistency can't be achieved using natural materials compared to artificial materials like plastic and imitation wood.
• It's a massive fire Hazard especially if used without a protective coating which will increase piece price
• Wood cannot be used without a reinforcement like metal or plastic which will again increase piece cost
• Can be sensitive to use of cleaning materials etc and will degrade in the longrun
• Not really environmentally friendly since it will involve cutting trees

[On4Wheels]

Originally Posted by audioholic

• Design and production consistency can't be achieved using natural materials compared to artificial materials like plastic and imitation wood.
• It's a massive fire Hazard especially if used without a protective coating which will increase piece price
• Wood cannot be used without a reinforcement like metal or plastic which will again increase piece cost
• Can be sensitive to use of cleaning materials etc and will degrade in the longrun
• Not really environmentally friendly since it will involve cutting trees

Thanks you for the reply!

I agree with you on first two points. However, there is no shortage of availability of well seasoned wood in the market. I think, if there is an increase in demand for wood, the availability would be more as wood industry is an unorganized sector, which may become organized like rubber Industry.
The fire hazardousness of wood and plastics are in similar order. The flammability (Ignition Temperature) if both wood and plastics are in same range (300 to 400 ºC). Also, as per the classification of fire, wood and fire falls in the Class A: Ordinary Combustibles Category. I would like to emphasis that the wood is used as a construction material in most of the developed countries.

I beg to differ on the point about the requirement of reinforcements. A well seasoned wood does not require any reinforcements. Moreover, we do have very strong (unbreakable) wooden products available in market. e.g.: compressed wooden seats used in railways. In my knowledge, the soft wood only require reinforcements.

Also, I feel, it is easier to maintain wooden furniture from scratches and hardening effects.

Regarding the environment friendliness of wood, I have a different point of view. Promotion of usage of wood may cause deforestation. However, if there is a constant demand for wood, many farmers would come forward to grow trees. This will increase the number of trees and subsequently, we will get cleaner air and lower atmospheric temperature. There are lots of land available for cultivation, and we are just converting it to residential plots which eventually becomes barren land.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Wood veneer is used in automobile interiors, but only in super luxury cars like Rolls Royces and flagship Bentleys. Rest of us make do with wood finishes.

[tarmacnaut]

Wood can deteriorate and when parked in dark, enclosed places like our basement parkings, wood can trap moisture and mould/fungus can easily grow all over which can be a nightmare and even a health hazard.

People who have left their cars in basements during COVID lockdown can attest to this, many of my friends had their fabric seats completely ruined by mould, wood will be even worse in this respect.

[neofromcapone]

Originally Posted by On4Wheels

No wood or wooden texture! Do you find the plastic dashboards boring? Are you missing luxurious looks of the wooden dash board? Why do manufactures choose costly carbon fiber instead of wood? Do you think wood as a material does not have any future in car Industry? Why wood is loosing its market when we move towards environment friendly materials?

Wood is legacy of the coach building era, the current car designers have no connect to it. They are focused on being, the heralder of the new-age/space-age technologies and materials.

IIRC, 12 years ago the C-class had wooden inserts in the dash, now its piano black inserts .
I guess its also cheaper.

So when retro look will be cool, wooden textures might come back.

[ashivas89]

Often in manufacturing, the cost is determined by the time to make something +manual intervention than the cost of the material itself.

With plastic it takes minutes to manufacture something in its final form with minimal manual intervention which conforms to close tolerances without any additional finishing steps being required..

Wood will take several man hours, even if we talk about automated precision milling using latest CNC tech. After bringing it to a certain form, within tolerances the part will still require several finishing steps like polishing etc.. Not even factoring the cost of wood here.

This is why we don't see billet metal parts interiors either despite metal being cheaper than wood.

Want a trim piece in fake carbon fibre, brushed aluminium or piano black? DONE! A machine will stamp out dozens of these by the time a block of wood is even loaded into a CNC.

In our industry, time is money.

[Jeroen]

Another reason to buy old second hand cars! Lots of cars, down to fairly ordinary family saloon used to have wood veneer panel. (e.g. Triumph)

Mind you, the only ones to do wooden interiors properly are the British, fair is fair.

Love my Jaguar!! Proper wooden veneer. Gorgeous, but very expensive to replace. Also, if you scratch one panel, you might have to replace all panels, because it is almost impossible to get an exact match. Typically, these panels are only sold in complete sets. It’s all or nothing so to say.







Jeroen

[V.Narayan]

Wood, I mean real wood require a lot of polishing & treating to get the right shape, look, sheen, strength, water-proofness etc. This does not lend itself easily to mass manufacture and standardized quality outcomes. Modern plastics are more amenable to mass production and maybe are cheaper. That is the reason I believe wood has gone out of fashion. Also till the 1970s high quality plastics as we know them today did not exist - metal, wood, tin, leather were the materials in use. Even boxes of biscuits or Ravalgoan toffees were made of tin. In India at least plastics in the interiors came with the Maruti 800.

Well crafted wood is a delight to behold as the photos below of a 6-year old Lexus ES300h depict. What some writers have mentioned about water resistance does not need to be true. Remember sailing ships and entire houses made of wood in USA. Properly treated wood is an amazingly versatile material - hard enough to bear weight, soft enough to chisel, malleable enough to mould within limits.

[Ravi Parwan]

One factor not being considered is maybe crash worthiness. Wood pieces can splinter and cause additional injuries to the occupants of the car. it is also difficult to develop crumple zones inside to cushion impacts, which is easier with plastics. If you note, most new car interiors have a single piece dashboard which acts as a crash barrier for occupants.

I maybe wrong here but more than cost, it is the crash safety norms which might have led to the decline in use of metal and wood in car interiors. even the linings and beadings that we had in the older generation cars is now plastic coated with chrome plating.

[1.2TSI7DSG]

Major things:
1. Durability - Rain, humidity, heat etc
2. Time to Produce - Time to produce the part, and fitting it on the vehicle is a big task. Add to that the ability to develop the part into the waterfall contours and the radius to ensure you dont get hurt
3. Variation in the source material - The treatment time to get it on stiffness etc is very long tedious process

[Guna]

Originally Posted by tarmacnaut

Wood can deteriorate and when parked in dark, enclosed places like our basement parkings, wood can trap moisture and mould/fungus can easily grow all over which can be a nightmare and even a health hazard.

Wood, if at all used, will be treated and sealed, so there is no issue of fungus, moss etc.
When I had purchased Gen 3 Honda city, I was not happy with the feel of the interiors and I was considering replacing the cheap plastic inserts with wooden inserts but eventually couldn't execute it.

[androdev]

There are many logical explanations but I feel the real reason is that wooden trim has gone out of fashion with the increasingly younger demographic of car buyers. Like Mercedes 3-pointed star (Jaguar too) on the hood.

[d.j]

Wood or wooden elements are getting scarce in most of the form these were used for aesthetic purposes, trend seems more towards man made, modern finishes and one of the reasons behind this, other than the consumer behavior patterns, is our ability to develop and process more and more kind of raw materials.

Regards/DJ

[GeeTee TSI]

I would attribute it to changing tastes with the times; with glass, steel, alcantara combinations still providing a classy ambience if used coherently.

With leather being shown the door now, in line with sustainable designs, wood is unlikely to make a comeback