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Magneti Marelli

Ing, Francesco Paolo Ausiello – Head of Development and Innovation at Magneti Marelli Holding

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

This question may be answered by splitting the forecast in two areas:

- ALREADY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES, where the energy saving issue, or if you like the CO2 reduction trend, will force all car manufacturers to deeply modify the car performances and architecture to allow less consuming technologies to be more and more employed.

In these countries :
• Class C or above, Passenger cars will increasingly use Hybrid Powertrain Solutions ( full & mild) and specially for urban areas a large diffusion of the Plug-in Hybrid must be expected. Additional effort will be put on weight reduction techniques affecting suspension and chassis (i.e. composite structures)
• Lower class vehicles will 100 per cent include additional fuel saving features like Start & Stop, Gasoline or Diesel Direct injection, PES…
• Always for lower class vehicles in urban driving conditions, a significant number of cars will become simple Electric Plug-in Vehicle thus using the announced, but today not yet fully exploited, battery improvements.
• In urban environments at 2018 stand, a certain importance will be given to personal rapid transportation vehicles enabling a quick connection between living home and public transportation systems peripheral station

- IN EMERGING COUNTRIES we will see the rapid growth of the private transportation system based upon a new generation of LOW COST passenger car generation.
• Bio fuel availability from agricultural waste bio conversion at a reasonable energetic cost will be a dominant factor in emerging countries, but in general, also in the industrialized ones, as a increasingly important alternative to fossil fuels.

What technologies will be key in 2018?

- POWERTRAIN
• Engines will more and more use Direct injection Gasoline or Diesel and will reduce their weight by using light aluminum crankcase.
• Performances will improve thanks to an enhanced variable valvetrain system electronically driven by means of hydraulic servo actuators .
• Engine combustion system will go HCCI for Diesel, in order to reduce the amount of after treatment devices required by the stringent 2018 NOx emission regulations.
• Transmissions will be automatised on the basis of integrated gear and friction shift actuators both for a traditional mechanical architecture (e.g. Magneti Marelli AMT) than for a Dual Clutch structure.
• FLEX BIO FUEL, and CNG will be used as far as the availability of such energy vectors will be available on the market.
- VEHICLE
• The vehicle architecture will be progressively “formatted” according to the AUTOSAR consortium reducing the development time thanks a strong reuse of SW strategies .
• To increase the overall safety car makers will introduce new integrated Advanced Driver Assistance Systems ( ADAS ) aiming to and early possible collisions detection providing as well collision avoidance help to the driver.
• Lighting system will be based on LED lights sources : car front will evolve in an impressive way!!
• Vehicle Telematics will develop a strong cooperative network between infrastructures and vehicle aimed to increase driver comfort in any circumstance, e-toll, e-parking etc.

How will your products and business sector develop?

Magneti Marelli will accordingly follow the above mentioned technology evolution in all its business lines:
• Electronics Systems for telematics, ADAS, Infotainment, multipurpose riconfigurable dashboards, and in general AUTOSAR compliant architectures.
• Automotive Lighting will provide the requested improved front and rear LED based lighting systems.
• Powertrain is now developing the next generation of EMS Euro 6 compliant both for Diesel and Gasoline; AMT evolution and Electronic Component for Hybrid traction system will complete the product offer in 2018 ( all compliant to AUTOSAR architecture requirements).
• Suspension Systems will enlarge the offer for real time adaptive damping control, aimed to increase safety ( inside the ADAS ) and car comfort .
• Exhaust Systems is now concentrated to develop and market the most advanced after treatment systems, like SCR ( selective catalytic reaction for Diesel NOx reduction.

Where do you see the big opportunities?

• Opportunities, but also high risk area will be in the HYBRID components development, and in the contiguous area of the electric PLUG IN vehicle component development.
• The strong development of the Infotainment, and telematic is opening a large area of business opportunities.
• Road infrastructure and vehicle interaction are the third area of big opportunities that Magneti Marelli is now exploiting .
• In general safety related devices will enlarge the business share in the Automotive market, in this Area Suspension Systems division and Automotive Lighting will find their business increase area.

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

• Co development with customer and cross competences will be the winning factor for future competition.
• To better perform the future development Job the most challenging factor is the merge of electronic ( HW,SW ,Controls ) disciplines into the classical Automotive disciplines like Mechanics, Fluid-dynamics, Optics,….) thus yielding a range of new defined disciplines like MECHATRONICS inter alia.
• Engineers with broader cross competences will be required therefore.
• Note that, in terms of providing a better Service to Customer, and in view of car complexity reduction, Magneti Marelli is conceiving all new strategic developments as Divisional Cross Projects trying to serve the customer with integrated “turn key” solutions involving all its own internal competences.
• As an example, the front and rear corners of a vehicle offer a large opportunity for cost sharing/saving of sensors and electronics in the Safety–Telematics – Vehicle Dynamic Control •This target implies people’s large cross competence to successfully get the required integration.

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