German Car Zone

Carmakers and legislators have been duking it out for decades. As one side fights to find new ways to lighten cars up, improve handling and efficiency, the other heaps on more and more safety regulations and mandatory equipment until things eventually cancel out. But an undercurrent to the progression toward more rigid, safer, and feature-packed vehicles over the last 40 years has been the increasing use of aluminum.

Surprisingly, despite the American public's taste for large vehicles, North America leads the world in vehicular aluminum use, about 0.8% ahead of the world average of 7.8%.

By brand, Honda and BMW are leading the way in aluminum use, with about 340lb (154kg) of the metal in each car on average. General Motors and Nissan had previously led the way, and still remain among the leaders. Volkswagen and Hyundai are also among the brands steadily increasing their use of the material.

Full article: Aluminum use in cars hits all-time high - [Aluminum car parts] - MotorAuthority - Car news, reviews, spy shots

Surprised that GM is a strong alu-user!

Oh yes... In fact, they use 5 layers of aluminium-paper glued together (with UHU paper-glue) for the safety cell of their cars, they consider it rigid enough...

So it's quite light actually. And the rest of the structure uses good American steel (now taken out of Corned-Beef cans, because of the crisis you know, you need to save money where you can).