By Olivier Sappin, Vice President of Transportation & Mobility Industry, Dassault Systèmes
Each new year brings tremendous change and opportunity, but for the Transportation & Mobility (T&M) industry, one thing remains constant: consumers are at the heart of innovation. In addition to catering to changing consumer tastes and behaviors, our efforts also seek to solve industry and business challenges, like alleviating environmental concerns and cutting costs, all while increasing safety standards. I’m predicting that this year will be one where we really start to see technology play a key role in aligning those three objectives.
Driverless Vehicles
One major innovation that will take shape in the T&M industry this year is the emergence of the driverless vehicle. We’ve heard of a number of interesting projects surrounding the idea of a “driverless car,” which involve a brand-new way to design, produce, and certify these driverless cars, something that will continue to develop throughout the new-year.
Increased cloud-based collaboration will have a hand in this. To successfully develop autonomous vehicles, it will require the individual actors of the T&M sector to collaborate in a completely new way; cloud-based collaboration will allow that to happen.
Car Electrification
We’ll also start to see greater attention placed on car electrification. There is a lot of research and development activity dedicated to improving the progression of electric motors and batteries. However, this will also require that we pay more attention to developing the infrastructure that will make this all possible – the electric vehicle market will only go as far as its infrastructure.
Personalization
We’ll also start to see consumers shift their expectations when it comes to ultra-personalized cars. Personalization is a theme we’re seeing across industries, as emerging technologies and collaborative tools allow consumers to have more of a voice and ability to personalize their experiences. For the T&M industry specifically, you might see consumers using 3D printing technologies to insert mobile devices into the cockpit of a car. Perhaps they’ll have their smartphone customized with a special setup where all their personal information can easily be connected to their vehicle.
What each of these predictions point back to is an emergence of new technologies that allow the T&M industry to innovate in ways that solve modern challenges and appeal to today’s changing consumer. In North America, we see significant investment going into the Silicon Valley – a lot of people are turning toward big tech companies to see what they can do for our sector. 2015 will a time for these sectors to fully collaborate and compete, thus spurring innovative in the process.
To learn more about how Dassault Systems’ is using the 3DEXPERIENCE to change the automotive industry, visit Transportation & Mobility industry center, which includes information on our Smart, Safe & Connected Industry Solution Experience that helps manufactuers manage the complexity of building the next generation of connected cars.
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