Against the background of a steady increase of the standards on comfort, passive safety and driving performance of vehicles as well as the commitment to reduce fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, the demand for lightweight construction attains paramount importance. The use of aluminum, magnesium or new steel alloys in the body structure can lead to significant weight reduction compared with conventional steel concepts. Furthermore, maximum weight reduction will require an intensive use of advanced composites in primary structures. The paper deals with the potentials and the challenges coming along with the introduction of advanced composites into automotive series production. Presently, liquid composite molding and compression molding of high-performance SMC are the most promising technologies to achieve demanding composite parts with high fiber volume fraction, good surface quality and controlled mechanical properties. The performance of specific automotive application processed in these techniques is presented and discussed. On principle, the cost/benefit aspect is of decisive importance for larger volume applications. Considerable efforts are necessary to reduce material and semi-finished product costs and to provide manufacturing technologies which are capable of allowing large-volume automotive production of composite components. Especially concepts are desirable which do not only provide a basic material substitution but rather an intelligent design based on component and functional integration as one of the most effective strategies to exploit the advantages of advanced composites. These aspects will be regarded and a brief summary on some other remaining challenges like recycling, crash simulation or joining and assembly technologies for mixed material concepts will be given.