engineering, AUTOSAR - Automotive Industries

intro
One of the many joys of editing Automotive Industries is
sitting down and writing this column once all the copy is
in, has been checked, and we are about to print. It is only
at this point that the character and theme of the edition becomes
apparent.
Reading through the copy in this edition, I was struck by how
complex the motor vehicle has become. At the customer end, mechanics
have to also be software technicians in order to keep the
vehicles on the road, while at the front end, vehicle designers are
faced with the challenges of converging streams of information
technology. Seems to me it was not that long ago that it was only
computer geeks and journalists who spoke about the meeting of
the metaphysical in the form of data with the physical in the form
of human beings or machines.
Wonderful stuff if you are a designer. The borders are being
expanded all the time, and not only in the design
of the vehicle. Propulsion is fast moving from fossil
fuels to electric power (ok, often generated by
fossil fuels) to the perhaps more interesting
biofuels – we are now talking about second,
Editor, Ed Richardson
third and fourth-generation biofuels, none of
which are based on food crops.
Whatever powers the vehicles, the challenge
is to make them more power efficient,
safer, and recyclable – combined with the equivalent
of a home theatre system and more thrown in for
good measure. Good news - if you are the proud owner of
a new car in a post-industrial society where the roads are paved,
the potholes filled in (mostly, anyway), and there is a friendly roadside
support team which can reconfigure and reboot the software
under an hour away. Oh, and you replace your vehicle every five
years or so, before the electronics frizzle up and die.
Not so great if you are in the majority, where roads are awful,
fuel iffy, technicians scarce, and your vehicle is expected to
Need to design
for two worlds
last 14 years or more. I am writing from South Africa – a pretty
advanced third-world country. Let’s start with the basics. We do
not have the new-generation fuels needed by the latest engines.
Even if we do start importing or refining the fuels in the future,
there is no guarantee that they will be available throughout the
country, or that fuel stations in our neighboring states will be able
to offer them – severely limiting the range of the new vehicle.
As readers know, fuels in places like India, China and parts of
South America are even more suspect. Simply put, many of the
latest-generation “world” engines will break if they do not have
the right fuel.
Which brings us to the very real challenge of keeping the vehicles
going. Having travelled extensively in Southern Africa over the past
year or so, I know that franchised dealers and modern workshops
are few and far between. There is no reason to suspect
that the situation is any different in the rural areas of
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Paraguay, India, China,
Vietnam or Russia – all of which represent major
existing or potential markets.
Indian, Chinese and to some extent Korean
OEMs have recognized the need for
two streams of technology – one for the
post-industrial world, and the other for
developing nations. That is not to say we
have to go back to a flat four carburetorfed
Kent engine and minimal electronics.
We motorists in the developing world
want safety, comfort and fuel efficiency as
much as those on the paved roads of Europe
or the United States.
We will buy vehicles which offer that and the
lowest running costs – as measured by the overall
cost of ownership, which includes the speed with
which a vehicle can be repaired and put back on the road.
Competitively-prices spares, components designed to be fixed
rather than replaced, and ease of maintenance are all part of the
equation. To that must be added clearance from the bottom of
the vehicle to the ground – to cope with inevitable corrugated and
untarred roads. Western OEMs, which are powering themselves
out of one of their biggest crises to date, could be left in the dust
if they ignore the needs of the new markets. AI
AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRIES and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, have put
together a digital library of back issues of AI from the early 1900’s (high res and low res) of
approximately 230,000 images of the print publication. This archive, which documents the
birth of the auto industry to the present, is available to AI subscribers.
Go to AI’s homepage www.ai.com and click on the “AI Library” link or visit
www.ai-online.com/100YearLibrary
6 to read full version of AI stories go to www.ai-online.com