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Ficosa

Vicenç Aguilera, R&D Managing Director of FICOSA

What social/economic/technological trends do you think will have the greatest impact in car design in 2018?

The planet will continue developing in an asymmetrical way and the scenario of the automobile market will be even more complex than today. New technological solutions, and also its risks, will be lead by the “Premium” brands. All models will be under a lot of pressure to reduce CO2 emissions and as a result, Otto and Diesel engines technologies will be challenged by hybrids and electrical solutions. The proliferation of different fuels will raise the need to develop new types of combustion engines. At the same time, weight reduction will give way to new materials and new production processes.

What technologies will be key in 2018?

In 2018, together with the 500 technologies that exist today there will be at least 100 new technologies which will provide solutions to the new challenges of fuel consumption and improvements in safety, comfort and communications.
The complexity of the vehicle will continue growing as a whole and the increase of functions will require new electronic architectures.

How will your products and business sector develop?

OEM’s will continue to entrust innovation, development and manufacturing responsibilities to Tier1’s.
The process of supplier’s concentration and the need to provide increasingly more complex solutions will force us to be capable to boost the complexity of our products and the capacity to integrate OEM’s mechanical and electronic solutions.

The integration of new functions regarding safety and communications will broaden the horizon for new products.

Where do you see the big opportunities?

New mobility solutions will demand V2V and V2I communication platforms with capacity to transmit a great amount of data and at the same time services providers will develop solutions as they have done for homes and workplaces.

Opportunities in this sector will continue to grow but also the number of actors. As a result, pressure on costs would be fierce and margins would be affected remarkably.

What skills/specialisms will you need from engineers in 2018?

In this new scenario of greater complexity and with the growth of technologies, our engineers should be more specialized on one hand, and on the other, they should assume a leading role to develop projects in an increasingly shorter time.

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