Technical Insight
THE FUTURE OF AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IS ELECTRIC AND AUTONOMOUS BHAVANEESH ATHIKARY Hexagon
T
he socially conscientious customer today has made the switch from price-conscious purchasing to buying products that reflect their ideologies. From FMCG products, this trend is quickly making its way onto the personal vehicle market, as reflected by the rising popularity of electric vehicles. Government sanctions and the growing awareness of the effects of fossil fuel production and use has also driven car manufacturers to heavily invest in the research and development of electric vehicles. While innovation is accelerating the journey towards a cleaner and more sustainable future in the domain of mobility, the automotive industry is also rallying to meet the demanding deadlines and customer specifications for new vehicles. Another important shift to be expected in road vehicles is the advent of autonomous vehicles. With several large warehouses across the globe investing in autonomous trucks etc., the age of autonomous road vehicles is not far away. The massive rate of electrification has also propelled carmakers to invest in R&D of autonomy since it is easier to implement autonomous features on electrified vehicles. As a result, electric
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vehicles are strongly accelerating the growth of autonomous vehicles. Consumers are driven by technology and social awareness and demand both innovations within the same vehicle. Electric vehicles are built with drive-by-wire systems that replace traditional mechanical control systems with electronic controls. These enable the easy implementation of autonomous driving technologies. In addition, the fast-paced developments in battery technology, increase in range, increase in reliability of electric vehicles, will accelerate the speed at which autonomous vehicles can be developed.
Electrification – driving innovations in manufacturing EVs are predicted to represent a third of the automotive market by 2025 and 51% by 2030. Therefore, the automotive market landscape is evolving rapidly, with this change being driven not just by large household names but by new players. Some of these new players are content with low order volumes and using learnings to build their manufacturing workflows from the
ground up; implementing newer smart technologies even in their manufacturing processes. This leaves conventional carmakers lagging behind newer companies that are more used to rapid innovation cycles and face low barriers because consumers expect more integrated digital technologies. Since new car designs render as many as 90% of automotive parts from existing ICE vehicles redundant, their strategies are less reliant on current supply chains and mass-manufacturing plants. The research finds that only 8% of carmakers see pure-play EV manufacturers as a threat, yet Tesla is already the market leader for battery electric vehicles (BEVs), while the likes of Lucid rapidly are scaling up with verticallyintegrated EV production. In contrast, data reveals a disconnect in the equivalent progress towards digital transformation by larger OEMs. While there has been a definite uptick in interest around “smart” automotive manufacturing, the research shows that recognition of its value is not always accompanied by implementation. Instead, the data reveals that the industry sees sourcing the required volume of parts and the inability to achieve economies of scale as the greatest perceived
