Most heavy automakers have their own research and development department . These R&D wings – such as the Toyota Technical Center ( TTC ) , Ford ’s Scientific Research Laboratory , and Volvo Technology – specify in let out the futurity of automotive design , including ways to build safe cars , more attractive cars , car that produce less befoulment , and cars that run on something other than the fossil fuel that are now the monetary standard . This includes R&D on alternative fuel technology , Department of State - of - the - art guard technologies and young ways of driving cars .
But transportation is such an important battleground that automotive research ca n’t just be left to the motorcar manufacturers . Universities , private firms , even the U.S. authorities have organisation pay to consider how auto function , the direction in which machine transport is headed , the ways that automobiles affect the world around us , and method for pee-pee railroad car safer and less polluting . These autonomous enquiry organization can do research that might not be potential at the car manufacturer themselves because the solution might not be what the motorcar manufacturer want to hear . And even when they produce resolution that the manufacturers would like to hear , those results might be perceive as biased by the public if they number from , say , Nissan or General Motors .
sovereign self-propelling inquiry generally light into two area : market inquiry , which can set what the populace wants in a railroad car and what instruction automakers should be moving in , and technical / scientific research , which determines what technologies will be available in the future and how cars impress club as a whole . The latter form of inquiry might pertain automotive safety or the core of home burning engines on the environment . The results of this sort of research show automakers what can be done in the future and can even prod them into doing it .
Of course , not all of these independent enquiry firm are unfeignedly independent . Many are fund at least in part by the automobile manufacturing business themselves . However , they are autonomous inasmuch as a great dower of their backing comes not from the carmaker but from universities , the government and private organization . How do automakers use this enquiry ? We ’ll look at some of the way over the next few Thomas Nelson Page .
Independent Research on Automotive Trends
Where is automotive technology lead in the future ? In part , that ’s up to the populace . If enough masses desire something in a car , automobile producer will bump a way to put it in . Finding out what the public wants is the role of market place research firms , which organize focusing groups to learn what people like about their railcar and what they ’d care to see ( or not see ) in their next auto . These firms often contract with auto manufacturing business to monitor public feeling on concept cars and fresh technology to determine if new models are go to sell .
But car manufacturer ca n’t test public acceptance of fresh technologies before they determine what those new engineering science are . Often new technological discoveries are beget by think armoured combat vehicle and individual R&D organizations . For instance , Google is currently test what might be the car of the future tense . bang as the Google Car , it essentially aim itself , relying on estimator and automated sensing engineering to pilot its way down the main road . The Google Car – actually a fleet of six cars based on the Toyota Prius and the Audi TT – force back back and forth between Los Angeles and San Francisco piloted alone by computer . It use a GPS for itinerary planning , radar and optical maser sensors for detecting objects and other cars in its path and cutting bound hokey intelligence programming to mix this data . It ’ll be some years before Google Car technology is good enough for cosmopolitan employment , or can be trusted on anything other than the state highway . Imagine using such a car to navigate complex neighborhood roadmaps – but the technology will eventually be available for license by automobile maker for use in production vehicles . If nothing else , its very existence examine to carmakers that an automated car will be possible much sooner than anyone might have guessed and this noesis will guide their enquiry . Besides Google , private arrangement and industrial association like the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research ( NCCAR ) and the European Council for Automotive R&D ( EUCAR ) cultivate with the self-propelling industriousness to research advanced technology and canvass future trend .
One of the most authoritative trends in the automotive world today is the development of alternative fuel technologies , such as galvanizing battery or H fuel cell . Much of the inquiry into these technologies is taking place at universities , from the California Institute of Technology ( Caltech ) to the University of Eastern Kentucky . ( The latter recently opened its Center for Renewable and Alternative Fuel Technologies , also known as CRAFT . ) extra inquiry into advanced self-propelled technology is do at Ohio State ’s Center for Automotive Research and the University of Maryland ’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology . Much of this inquiry is made potential , in part , by store from the car diligence . For instance , the Ohio State program receives fiscal support from a broad orbit of partners , including not only the big three American gondola manufacturer – Ford , Chrysler and General Motors – but Honda , Hyundai , Toyota and automobile - tie in potbelly such as Goodyear . The result of this research is in turn made available for all companies to use , profiting the auto industry as a whole .
This research tell the producer where they should be heading in the hereafter . But what can independent research severalise the car industry about agency in which the quality of machine can be changed today ?
Independent Research on Automotive Quality
Perhaps the most important area in which research touch automotive quality is safety . Obviously machine manufacturers are doing their own enquiry on technologies that will make car safe to aim – Volvo is famous for this – but government means are as well . Driving safely is a matter of public interest and sometimes the government needs to push the motorcar diligence along a little faster than it wants to go .
The government agency in charge of making cars safer is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA ) . safety equipment inquiry by NHTSA fall into several areas , include Biomechanics and Trauma ( often using advanced clash test dummies to determine what happens to the human body during a collision ) , Behavioral Research ( which determines why masses drive aggressively or allow themselves to become distrait at the steering wheel ) , and Crash Avoidance Research ( which helps to develop technologies that foreclose crashes from happening in the first station ) . Through its Crash Injury Research and Engineering web ( CIREN ) , NHTSA bring together expert from academia , the auto industriousness and the government to foster collaborative research on motorcar guard . The results of NHTSA ’s inquiry can be used by the industry to implement sophisticated safety engineering in future cars , but NHTSA can also force the industry to adopt safety technology through legislation requiring that safety technology – melodic phrase bags , for example – be admit in cars .
There are also private organization with an sake in safety research . Perhaps the better roll in the hay is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ( IIHS ) . The IIHS performs clangor tests interchangeable to those performed by NHTSA and advance the industry to meliorate safety with its rating system , which evaluates the operation of cable car in frontal crashes , side crash and rear crashes . These rating are usable to the public and provide an incentive for car manufacturers to amend the crashworthiness and stability of cars .
Of naturally , the automotive industry can also apply independent enquiry on safety to bear witness that their cars have been safe all along . In the viewing of allegations that incorrect electronics were responsible for for runaway acceleration in some of its elevator car , Toyota point to independent research performed at Stanford University suggesting that the acceleration could only be touch off by a complete rewiring of the car ' electronic system of rules and that such unauthorized rewiring would have get any brand of railcar to malfunction .
Another private firm well known for its inquiry on automotive quality is J.D. Power and Associates . J.D. Power perform client gratification surveys as well as survey of dealerships and uses the outcome to rate cars by their initial quality , their overall operation and design , and their dependability . The organization publishes these results in several ways , includingon its Web situation . To promote the industry to ameliorate self-propelling quality , it gives out the J.D. Power and Associates Awards to those companies that it feel have been most responsive to the motive of their customers .
In the end , of course , the self-propelled manufacture can choose to take heed to or ignore the event of self-governing research , even the inquiry they bear for ( except in the case of NHTSA ) , which has the option of turning enquiry into legislating ) . However , most carmakers read that paying attention to research on quality and self-propelled movement is right byplay , if only because it earmark them to swash that their railway car are safe , more durable and less polluting that the 1 made by their competitors .
For more information about automotive research and testing , be the links on the next varlet .
