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Desktop Engineering Blog

Electric Vehicles – a Gold Rush?

Posted by Geoff Haines on 26-Jan-2018 14:32:24

Global Warming - Global Driving

Foremost on the political agenda across the world is global warming. Whether you believe it or not, and there is one notable leader who doesn’t, there is little point in ignoring the fact most world governments have it on their agenda.

This has led to initiatives of eliminating internal combustion engines on our roads. 

NextEV Nio in production. Electric cars of the future? the future is now .....

In the UK by 2040 all vehicles must be electric. The same in France and the Netherlands. Most European countries now have clear aims in removing petrol and diesel engines from their roads. This is driving considerable disruption in the established automotive manufacturers with research and development spending now moving into this area. New entrants are appearing with Dyson’s in the UK, a home appliance manufacturer, announcing their intention to develop an electric car.

What may surprise you is that in China more than 200 companies have announced plans to make electric vehicles. There are parallels in history wherein new opportunities for the venture, sparked large-scale activity. The California Gold Rush, from which I draw inspiration for this article, had 300000 people head out to California to mine gold in 1848. It ended in 1855 with winners and losers – more of the latter I guess.

Another parallel is the USA automotive industry. There were 1800 manufacturers of cars in the USA between 1890 and 1930. Again, some survived but many disappeared through bankruptcy or mergers.

So, now it is with electric vehicles – we are at the stage of new entrants starting with the ambition to capture this new market.

3DEXPERIENCE platform for Automotive Systems Engineering

One key challenge they face to get their product to market quickly is the need to design in 3D, typically between different departments across different countries. Further, this information needs managing both internally and within their supply chain.  Dassault’s 3DEXPERIENCE software platform delivers this.

At DTE we have seen considerable activity in this area, led by Chinese companies such as NIO (NextEV), who invested in this technology both here and in China. In doing so their aim is to create and share designs and information quickly.

 

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Topics: 3DEXPERIENCE, Automotive