Daimler to develop carbon fibre car parts

Japanese textile maker Toray Industries said on Wednesday that it and German carmaker Daimler AG will jointly develop carbon fibre car parts, which will be used in Daimler's Mercedes-Benz cars starting in 2012.

The first cars to use the new carbon fibre composite materials will be the Mercedes-Benz SL-Class, Toray spokesman Yoshitaka Yamagata said.

Toray and Daimler will develop reinforced plastic materials by using the carbon fibre produced at Toray's plant in France, he said.

This is the first time that Toray, the world's biggest maker of carbon fibre with a global market share of 34 percent, is developing carbon fibre car parts. The company has supplied carbon yarn for Ferrari's sports cars, Yamagata said.

Carbon fibre for use in cars accounted for an estimated 7 billion to 8 billion yen ($86 million) of Toray's revenue which is estimated at 1.35 trillion yen for the year ended March 31.

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