Notes:
It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m going to talk about automobiles in year
2010 and beyond. Probably the only thing for sure about discussing the future is
that regardless of what might seem apparent from our perspective in 1997, it probably will
not turn out exactly as we envision it. This fellow’s concept of the car of the
future was obviously shaped by his perspective on vehicle technology in 1911. And
any long-range forecast we make today is just as likely to be colored by our own
perspective in time. The future will of course be an extension of the present - we
can look at our trajectory and feel fairly confident of where we’ll land - but we
probably have a few surprises in store for us along the way. Still, the direction of
today’s development efforts does provide a fairly good indication of where we’ll
end up.
There are lots of new vehicle technologies out there - lots of really innovative
systems. In fact, the whole development end of the industry seems to be alive with a
sense of adventure that wasn’t there before.
There used to be a saying hung on office walls around Motorola to the effect that:
“Where there are paradigms, shift happens.” It seems clear to me that
shift is happening from one end of the automotive industry to the other. And it goes
beyond power system architecture and the shape of the automobile to include our way of
designing and building it as well. Three-D computer modeling, computer simulation,
virtual prototyping, computer-aided-manufacturing - the computerization of all these
processes from concept to finished product - is expanding our capabilities, compressing
the time it takes to get things done, and creating what amounts to a whole new paradigm
for the way we do our jobs.
While it may be difficult to predict exactly how these new power system technologies
will shake out, one thing I feel confident about is that we will not be using petroleum
motor fuel much longer, and new vehicles will be almost environmentally benign and far
more energy efficient by year 2010.
I am a great believer in the idea that we humans tend to do what we have to do, which
is very close to the old maxim that “necessity is the mother of invention.”
So I think it will help to know where automobile technology is heading if we take a
quick look at why it has to go there.
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