The next car tech frontier: simplicity
Aremarkable evolution is about to occur under the hood of the next generation of hi-tech vehicles. And no, it is not about self-driving or flying cars. It is also not about the inevitable move from internal combustion engines (ICE) to battery electric vehicles, though that move underpins another huge shift.
As a result of the need to create standardised but versatile platforms for building cars for a range of markets, and due to in-car systems becoming more integrated, the number of control systems required for a car is likely to fall sharply.
As a further consequence, the amount of wiring in a car is likely to be reduced dramatically.
“It’s a big paradigm shift,” says John Willems, chief program engineer for the new generation of Ford Ranger models being launched worldwide this year. He is based in Australia, where most of the engineering design work for the Ranger occurs.
This week, he was visiting SA, one of the global manufacturing hubs and a core market for the Ranger.
“The amount of control systems and technology in an ICE vehicle nowadays just to manage the emission systems is incredible,” he says. “Fuel system controls, emission controls, driver controls, temperature controls.”
And that is aside from numerous other control systems, all operating independently to regulate specific operations of a vehicle.
“Now that you’ve got battery technology that’s moving at a really incredible rate, it means you can actually reduce the amount of technology.”
The approach extends to the manufacture of vehicles, too, with increasing automation of production lines and ever-greater sophistication and streamlining of manufacturing processes.
“Given that we build in so many plants, what we want to have as much as possible is a global design process, so that we’re not having to engineer different products or different plants.”
The Ranger itself has evolved from a working truck to a vehicle that must also meet lifestyle and technology needs, he says.
“Over time, the customer base has changed quite a bit. Now it’s more of a family vehicle and a recreational vehicle as well as a work vehicle, and often people use it for all those purposes. Where we really want to stretch ourselves is around the technology side, the safety and connectivity aspects of the vehicle that you’re finding in a lot of premium vehicles.”
A small irony lurks in Willems’s visionary discussion of what is coming next.
“I see myself as a bit of a dinosaur because I’ve grown up around engines,” he admits. “My vision of the vehicle is really around an engine as the heart of it. But I don’t have an issue with the fact that that’s not the future.
“I know it will make for a simpler vehicle and a more connected vehicle, because you don’t need all the control systems. The systems we set up from a platform perspective revolve around servicing the fuel systems or cooling systems, the driveline systems, the exhaust systems, and so on. But we purposely set the platform up to be compatible with electrification, because that’s clearly where the future is.
“As we’re moving towards electrification, we’re also moving towards simplification of software and how we’re going to control that vehicle, with a more centralised computer base that’s controlling the full vehicle rather than distributed modules. So it’s not only about electrification; it’s about how you’re making it more efficient.”
The new Ranger is the fourth generation of the vehicle manufactured entirely by Ford, after initial models derived from Mazda designs. About 80% of the parts are either new or have undergone major modifications.
Willems won’t be drawn on details of the next generation that is likely to emerge in the next three to five years.
He does offer one tiny glimpse, however. “We’ve set up the platform to be futureproofed,” he says.