One particular trend I noticed here was how the merge of the automotive and electrical & electronics industry inspired material suppliers to innovate more than ever. As the automotive industry is currently facing a major disruptive transition towards digital mobility, digitization is leading to a massive conversion of the traditional automotive industry with electronics, making the car of the future literally a smartphone on four wheels.
At our booth we even installed a virtual reality station to spell out the future: all the individual parts of the vehicle - under the hood, inside the passenger compartment, on the exterior - will be connected via smart electronic devices, all of them integrated within an overall “intelligent” design. Connected cars will drastically change the way people drive, just as smartphones have changed the way people communicate!
Through developing an HV component, e-motor and battery for a new energy car, we continue to scale new heights in material technology for the automotive industry. A key challenge for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in this context will be the need to develop next-generation cars filled to the brim with advanced electronics. The more electronics in a car, the more it weighs, but cars need to be lighter in order to burn less fuel and have lower CO2 emissions. This need to cut weight is even more critical when applied to electric vehicles, which have a much lower range than cars powered by internal combustion engines.