Challenges for Future Automotive Mobility

The way in which people and goods are transported is rapidly changing. Urbanization, green thinking, and self-driving vehicles are just a few of the contemporary trends that are changing the face of transportation and the overall mobility system. The automotive industry in particular is having to rethink its business models in order to continue to provide solutions that address current and future trends. A shift from being a traditional car manufacturer with a business model focused on product sales toward being a provider of mobility services seems to be one promising approach among many other possibilities. Furthermore, stricter legislative restrictions result in new challenges that are pushing vehicle development engineers to adopt highly efficient and effective solutions. New technologies, such as autonomous driving, vehicle driver interaction, Internet of things, and powertrain-specific technologies, provide a huge number of possibilities to optimize the way vehicles and the environment interact. Lifecycle considerations and analyses are key enablers for sustainable mobility and influence the way vehicles are developed, manufactured, used, and recycled. This chapter will provide a general overview of mobility systems and their challenges from both a contemporary and future perspective.