Prize-winning plastics

Lower cost, lighter weight solutions highlight the 2008 SPE Automotive Innovation Awards.

In a year of news dominated by the topics of fuels and emissions-reduction, it's appropriate that a new vehicle fuel tank with excellent environmental performance won the highest honor in the 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers' (SPE) Automotive Innovation Awards competition.

BMW's twin-sheet blow-molded tank system used on the company's 2009 7 Series luxury sedan earned the SPE's prestigious Grand Award, beating 25 other finalists. It also topped the Process/Assembly/Enabling Technologies category The sophisticated tank is permanently sealed to thwart evaporative emissions, and contains all system hardware within.