A new, lighter stainless steel bumper has been developed that will reduce car weight, thereby increasing fuel efficiency. Increasingly stringent environmental demands are encouraging the automotive industry to look for ways of producing lighter and more fuel-efficient cars. Using new technology, the VEK Project has developed the bumper, which is 26% lighter than existing bumpers. Innovatum, Saab Automobile, Outokumpu Stainless, Finnveden Metal Structures and Epsilon are just some of the companies that have taken part in the project. The greatest weight reduction has been achieved in the collision boxes. "In terms of our design specifications, we modeled our work on the bumper system used by the Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan, which is widely regarded as one of the best in the world. The results obtained from the VEK Project will be one of the factors taken into consideration when choosing future design concepts for the production of new cars throughout the GM Group," says Jonas Adolfsson of SAAB Automobile in Trollhättan in Sweden, who is project manager for the VEK Project. The ultra high-strength stainless steel grade used in the prototypes, HyTens, has been developed by Outokumpu Stainless AB. One of the finesses with HyTens is that the properties and weight of the components can be optimised by interactively controlling the strength when the component is shaped.