The global automotive industry has been a pioneer in adopting laser technology into the manufacturing process, perhaps starting as early as 1973 when Ford Motor Co. purchased an underbody laser welding system for an assembly line. Today, new solid-state laser technologies are evolving at an unprecedented pace — in some respects, even more rapidly than Moore’s law predicts advances in semiconductor technology (Figure 1). How are these advances being used in the automotive industry, and how will they be used in the future?

Traditionally, the adoption of lasers by the automotive industry has been linked to new applications. In the 1980s, for example, the use of lasers expanded into gear parts welding, the production of air-bag components and the welding of engine components such as injection valves. By the 1990s, they were finding applications in the manufacture of automobile bodies through the greatly expanded use of tailor-welded blanks and hydroformed parts. Today they are at work at contract suppliers around the globe..

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