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The Center for Automotive Research is committed to informing the public about the current state of vehicle technologies. In 2017, 2019, and 2020, CAR published roadmaps describing the current and likely future state of vehicle technologies. To ensure the information forecasted by CAR remained current and reflected the latest in vehicle technologies, trends, and expectations, CAR conducted ongoing research and moderated industry roundtables. Industry roundtable experts included auto manufacturers, parts suppliers, technology providers, data providers, autonomous platforms providers, and technology investors. Following the roundtables, CAR developed an updated roadmap and white paper reflecting industry trends and expectations. This paper summarizes critical issues involving the development and deployment of technology in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous vehicles (AV), and vehicle connectivity.

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The IRA Clean Vehicle Credits attempts to address many challenges regarding consumer acceptance of BEVs and other advanced propulsion technologies. One key objective of the regulation is to support President Biden’s goal of reaching 50 percent EV market share by 2030 while ensuring a strong domestic supply base for this critical technology. The U.S. has recently faced supply chain challenges causing long wait times, along with serious national security concerns due to foreign markets controlling large portions of the EV supply chain. In response, the law aims to limit the role of China and other foreign entities of concern role in the sourcing of EV critical minerals, raw materials, and battery components to the U.S. market. However, the IRA’s clean vehicle credit nuances may hinder the EV market at a time when automotive and battery manufacturers are investing billions in the industry. Manufacturers will face challenges in the coming years as they work towards building a domestic chain to meet the Clean Vehicle Credit requirements. Additionally, the complexity of the regulation could lead to confusion and frustration among potential consumers.

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The project begins to identify the “white spaces” in manufacturing enabled by a transition to BEV and digital manufacturing. For this project, the research team conducted long-form interviews to support a targeted technology survey of manufacturing (operations) and information technology decision-makers at five vehicle manufacturers. CAR researchers also conducted interviews with leading labor representatives. The gathered information provides a snapshot of how the North American automotive industry is digitally converting vehicle manufacturing and the critical role of BEVs in that conversion.

CAR considered three building blocks to help place structure around the digital transformation enabled by BEV manufacturing: technology (production and digital) process (scheduling, throughput, and quality assurance) and organizational (alignment and skills). CAR researchers also investigate the role of partners in the transition.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the ICE to BEV transformation is the sheer breadth of changes to the production process – from new BEV-specific parts, processes, and suppliers to new technology opportunities made possible via digital technologies. Survey results identified the production of the battery cell/module/pack and the selection of suppliers as the primary challenge of the new BEV manufacturing paradigm.

A common theme from the interviews was the uncertainty of demand for BEVs. Several manufacturers are pursuing dual-mode production lines, which will require more flexibility, specifically for ICE and BEV configurations. Digital tools are being implemented to support planning. Based on the survey results, improved supply chain integration and more timely data are the most common ingredients being leveraged for process improvements in production scheduling. Respondents indicated enhanced supplier integration would be needed as EV production increases to avoid disruption and fully leverage analytics to optimize production throughput rapidly.

OEM and Organized Labor respondents agreed that the rate of change in the automotive industry is driving the need for enhanced skills. However, a recurring theme from interviewees punctuated this point by pointing out that these skills were digital transformation-related, much more than being only BEV-related. In other words, skills associated with new digital technologies (i.e., data management requirements, advanced analytics, machine learning, and automation) remain a development priority. Still, they pertain equally to both BEV and ICE vehicles.

While automakers have specified the need to develop new digital transformation and production skills internally within their organizations, they also recognize that there are focused capabilities in which partners can most definitely enhance these efforts. The research concluded that product and service partners in the areas of hardware/software supply, business process consulting, technology consulting, and IT consulting were dispersed. However, “very important” (the very best significance level) rankings did appear at least somewhat in all three business process areas surveyed and across the different partner products and services. This is not entirely surprising, given the current marketplace’s high demand for digital transformation skills.

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The interviews conducted during this research stated that companies are mainly motivated by a focus on process improvement and demands communicated by their customers. The aim of this paper is to describe how digitization and transformation to new technologies can impact the quality assurance system of the manufacturers, specifically the automotive industries.

Competition amongst quality and consumer satisfaction are the most challenging factors in each industry. This project will focus on the influence of progressive technologies and ingenuity on a variety of modern, agile, and advanced processes in the automotive industry.

The research paper includes the investigation and the introduction of numerous developments and inventions in manufacturing organizations in the last few years. The paper begins by introducing the current challenges in existing processes and the impact of digital methodologies in planning and management – specifically in quality management. This qualitative research will also incorporate a summary that covers the digital transformation and the optimizations in the quality assurance sector of the automotive field.

• Industry Focus: Technology and Innovation
• Research Focus: Automotive Industries

The summary of this project will benefit educators within the advanced technology field, manufacturing stakeholders, as well as management. The research will be presented to educate the audience about introducing artificial modern technologies in order to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and competitiveness of the organization.

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Two key initiatives in this transformation are smart manufacturing/Industry 4.0 and the emphasis on increased collaboration between stakeholders. Critical to this transformation is the ability to eliminate organizational data silos and mine this rich and diverse data stream to derive the next-generation insights to support effective decision-making and innovation at scale. Data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) are key technologies that provide the tools to achieve these objectives.

From an operational perspective, monolithic legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are being reimagined as smart, contextual, and agile digital innovation and collaboration platforms, consisting of a core industry-specific, cloud-based ERP combined with a strategic integration platform for supplemental applications. This modular architecture provides the vital agility, visibility, and scalability capabilities essential for automotive companies to compete and thrive in an ever-evolving environment.

This paper will explore these themes in greater detail. One thing, however, is very clear: Inaction is not a reasonable option. Success in the automotive industry requires next-generation insights delivered through cloud-enabled digital transformation.

Are your organization and technology architecture equipped for success in this new era?

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Sustainability is complex and challenging. At its core, sustainability contains three pillars: environmental, social, and governance, commonly referred to as ESG. The Affiliates guided CAR to focus initial efforts on the environmental pillar of sustainability. Given the enormous challenges environmental sustainability presents, it is a logical starting point. However, CAR and its Affiliates understand the social and governance pillars are critical and worthy of equal attention in the coming years.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, CAR convened two roundtable discussions with Affiliates to explore environmental sustainability challenges. Participants included representatives from material suppliers, part and component manufacturers, consulting firms, and service firms. CAR designed the roundtables to understand industry stakeholders’ most critical concerns in developing an environmental sustainability plan. The two roundtables included a total of 15 people from different companies. The participants were a diverse group with many different perspectives.

CAR researchers designed the roundtables to accomplish three main outcomes. Better understand stakeholders’ perspectives on their companies’ sustainability strategies and challenges; gather insights on their perspectives regarding their customers (the vehicle manufacturers) sustainability expectations and; the role CAR should play in supporting stakeholders’ sustainability efforts. This report summarizes the roundtable outcomes and possible next steps.

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Not surprisingly, elements of the Biden Administration’s Proposed Rule reverse many elements of the Trump Administration’s SAFE Rule. It is worthwhile to note that while there was a wide range of reactions to the SAFE Rule, most comments submitted for the 2021 Proposed Rule have been supportive of the proposed revisions—with some notable exceptions. It is also important to note the current Proposed Rule was individually published by the EPA and not jointly with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Recent proposals and subsequent rules have been developed jointly between EPA and NHTSA. The shift to separate rules may indicate growing differences between the two rule-making entities. The industry has strongly supported EPA and NHTSA to develop a single coherent rule.

In the Proposed Rule, the EPA presents and analyzes standards at three levels: The (preferred) proposed standard, a more stringent standard, and a less stringent standard. This paper presents key points of the proposed standard and provides a sample of key stakeholder reactions. However, it is possible—even likely—that the EPA’s final implemented ruling will include elements beyond what has been proposed.

The Proposed Rule intends to supplement the current Administration’s decarbonization goals through the implementation of more stringent emissions regulations. The EPA recognizes that achieving the Administration’s goals will be difficult, and compliance from automotive manufacturers may require increased flexibility. While some organizations may directly benefit from more flexible regulations, others argue that the flexibilities will hinder progress towards emissions reduction.

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The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) was commissioned by NASEM to study vehicle mass reduction for model years 2025-2035. Over the past decade, CAR has been a leader in light-duty vehicle mass reduction research. CAR has done work on assessing the real-world barriers to implementing mass reduction technologies (J. Baron, 2016). CAR also worked with nine global vehicle manufacturers to examine material trends over the next decade (Baron & Modi, 2016). The project still stands as one of the most cooperative and thorough analyses done to date. CAR collected data on 42 vehicles from 4 segments representing 50 percent of the U.S. light-duty fleet. Most recently, CAR has published a Materials and Manufacturing Technology Roadmap (Modi & Vadhavkar),

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Industry X acknowledges that the pace of change has become so rapid that it no longer makes sense to think of manufacturing and production as advancing in discrete stages. The digital technologies that gave rise to the concept of “Industry 4.0” have continued to improve. No organization can reasonably aspire to adopt a state-of-the-art digital enterprise architecture because “state-of-the-art” is sure to advance by some degree by the time a new enterprise architecture is deployed.

This project presents an ecosystem approach to Industry X research. Industry X is a massive, complex, and rapidly evolving sector. The CAR research team thinks it is unlikely that any entity or individual can fully comprehend the depth and breadth of Industry X. To use a well-worn phrase, it takes a village to implement—and research—Industry X. The CAR Industry X ecosystem team consists of Hardware (Dell and Intel), Data Management (Cloudera), Digital Automation and Analytics (Rockwell Automation and PTC), Consulting (Accenture), and Cloud Infrastructure (Microsoft Azure). These companies provided financial support—but equally important, they provided the CAR research team with unmatched technical and strategic knowledge and perspective. Throughout the project, the CAR researcher’s interaction with the industry and the consortium members proved that no one participant has all the answers. A collaborative ecosystem would be a beneficial environment for all of these stakeholders.

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