Starting planning from integrated factory to virtual reality, find six key trends primed to know the automotive industry in the future.
Once a year, experts from the automotive industry has a meeting with Autodesk’s Automotive Innovation Forum. It gives vibes like a class reunion between automotive designers and engineers is actually a main heros for how the car of the future may look. Taking forward, chief designers talked about the six most important trends that will shape the industry.
1. Electrification
Electrification has achieved accurate momentum in recent years and will undoubtedly remain one of the most significant trends in the automotive industry. Continuously and rapidly automakers are investing in developing electric vehicles to meet the growing requirement for environmentally friendly mobility solutions. General Motors, Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover, and Aston Martin, among others, plan to go completely electric in the foreseeable future. VW will invest more than 30 billion euros ($32.2 billion) by the end of 2023 in the planned launch of nearly 70 e-models over the next 10 years.
Electric cars can give designers a freer hand to implement their ideas—Automobili Pininfarina’s Battista is a prime example. “The electric drive provides us with a desired amount of permit in design,” says the company’s interior director, Francesco Cundari. The low-slung T-shaped battery routing inside the car provides a large amount of room for design, giving the minimalist design lines to go through the entire chassis, uninterrupted by wiring harnesses normally installed in cars.
2. Autonomous driving
Automakers and technology companies are investing greatly in the development of self-driving cars. The German government provides current funding for more than 12 pilot projects on autonomous driving while, in the United States, more than 80 companies are putting a total of 1,400 self-driving cars to the test. And in Beijing, Pony.ai and Baidu have launched driverless cabs. Autonomous vehicles are forecast to account for 1/10th of road traffic by 2030.
Through the use of sensors, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, vehicles will be able to handle complex traffic situations autonomously.
Italian design company Italdesign gives ideas about what a future with autonomous cars could look like with its modular mobility concept Climb-E, a vehicle without a driver. While Climb-E drives the occupants from place to place, an entertainment program inside makes riding an superb enjoyable experience. These kinds of aspects can sound abstract to consumers, so automotive manufacturers are using virtual reality (VR) and simulation software such as Autodesk Maya or Autodesk VRED to compel and attract customers and stakeholders. “Technology is the best tool for chasing innovations like the Climb-E,” says Joaquin Garcia,designated as head of design at Italdesign.
3. VR, AR, & MR:- Extended reality
Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR, AR, and MR)—all together considered as extended reality (XR)—are rapidly used in automotive manufacturers’ VR rooms, which means teams can design prototypes from anywhere or any location. This saves materials, time, and money. A real prototype can cost more than $525,000 and take a long time, like several weeks to build, resulting in a design that hardly permits any changes. Preferring a digital model, details can be changed fastly without incurring extra charges. “VR technology can save us many weeks of work in prototype construction,” says Robert Dyhringer, project lead at the Mercedes-Benz Van Group VR Center. “A recent VR inspection required two days.” Conventional prototyping requires a full four weeks.
4. Connectivity
By giving internet access to the vehicles , automobiles can communicate with their environment. Which results in automakers increasingly thinking like software companies. By integrating infotainment operators, driver assistance roles, and communication(wireless), cars can interact in real time with other vehicles, traffic control systems, and cloud services. This permits personalized services, real-time traffic data, and the introduction of smart household technologies. It also expands the target group of car manufacturers. The focus is no more on the driver, but on all occupants. Whether by reading corners, future customers will want to be entertained digitally in their cars.
Car designers are also having the privileges of networked work. In the future, automotive designers will collaborate entirely in the cloud to efficiently design the vehicles of tomorrow remotely. Deeply software expertise will become a key differentiator for automotive manufacturers.
5. Integrated factory planning
Climate change does not permit us to have time taking planning processes for the factories of the future,” says Axel Save, who is the engineering manager of factory layout and modeling at Northvale. “We have to become faster and more efficient.” His team builds the gigafactories of the future, which are currently mushrooming around the world to meet the demand for electric car batteries.
Like Porsche , Northvolt believes in integrated factory scheduling to digitally showcase all the details of the factory in a central building information modeling (BIM) model. The main part of the model is the building itself—the factory. It contains a digital pictorial of all trades, from the robot to the production line. All parties participating in the construction came together in this model: architects, factory planners, contractors, assembly experts, fire protection specialists, and some other authorities. Their designs, data, and information are all connected—carrying costs, suppliers, materials, and area size. Coordination and change processes take place in a central model, saving time.
6. Artificial Intelligence
“Compared with other technologies, artificial intelligence [AI] is still in its infancy,” said Ehab Kaoud, designated as former chief exterior designer for trucks and SUVs at Ford. “But AI’s impact on the market will come and turn the market upside down.” Kaoud is experimenting with AI to get motivation for his automotive designs. “AI makes us decent designers,” he says.
AI can develop ideas that human designers wouldn’t think of—the same applies to AI-based generative design. By algorithms , AI can make thousands of designs based on given parameters. The designer then analyzes the options and refines the design. Toyota used this technology to design a frame for a lighter car seat.
These trends will totally change the way designers, engineers, and fabricators work. This shift will require soft communication from management to put the workforce on the path to disruptive change. Aside from all the software solutions experts will have to expertise in the future, change management should be the very important tool for all managers in the automotive industry to put more horsepower on the roads of the future.