Introduction to Automotive Product Design & development

Develop a structured product planning approach for automotive design, guiding market research, customer needs, scope, and opportunities, while planning budget, time, talent, manufacturing, and tracking technology and sustainability trends.

Concept development translates deep market research and customer needs into vehicle requirements, specifications including powertrain, body structure, and suspension, along with sketches and models, guiding industrial design and value propositions.

Explore how automotive design blends aesthetics and aerodynamics, guiding from market research and sketches to 3D CAD, drag and lift considerations, and proof-of-concept models.

Explore how a car’s silhouette forms the first impression, and how overhangs, wheelbase, wheel size, and A, B, and C pillar geometry shape its proportions and design language.

Explore class A surfaces—the curvature-rich exterior and interior vehicle surfaces visible to customers—released from styling to engineering, and learn how G0 to G3 curvature continuity yields manufacturable, aesthetically pleasing designs.

Explore ergonomic design and human factors engineering to shape the occupant cabin, aligning seats, steering, controls, and visibility with biomechanics to minimize effort and fatigue.

Explore the hedge point concept, a reference location for occupant seating in the vehicle coordinate system, shaping cabin space, ergonomics, human factors, visibility, and aerodynamics.

Engineers perform ergonomic analyses in the concept stage using CAD, mockups, and simulations to design seat and control layouts, with the seating buck evaluating cabin space and control access.

Define vehicle concepts through specifications during concept development that cascade from vehicle to system, subsystem, and component levels, covering dimensions, configurations, performance parameters, and key features like wheelbase and powertrain.

Explore vehicle architecture as the plan for organizing internal systems in 3D space, linking concept design to system design, and showing how vehicle type and drive configuration shape performance.

Powertrain arrangement and location shape vehicle architecture, comparing longitudinal engines with transaxle layouts for front-, rear-, and four-wheel-drive vehicles. This affects engine bay size, tunnel need, and weight distribution.

Explore middle engine placement and its impact on weight distribution toward a 50/50 balance in sports cars, noting cabin space tradeoffs for passenger vehicles.

Explore vehicle construction concepts, comparing body-on-frame and unibody designs, their load paths, and how twisting and bending loads shape performance, weight, and manufacturing across passenger and commercial vehicles.

Compare body-on-frame and unibody constructions, noting heavier weight, stronger off-road stiffness, and load-carrying advantages of body-on-frame versus lighter, softer, and superior crash performance of unibody.

Explains the space frame as a 3D truss that delivers stiffness and protection, contrasts it with sheet metal, and shows Lamborghini Aventador's integration of unibody, base frame, and subframes.

Assess how suspension configurations shape vehicle architecture and dynamics. Compare independent, MacPherson strut, double wishbone, multi-link, and dependent systems, and their effects on wheel alignment and durability.

Compare dependent rigid axle suspensions with independent systems, highlighting twist beam, McPherson struts, and multi-link designs, and explain how vehicle dynamics targets, packaging space, cost, weight, and durability guide selection.

Explore modular platforms in automotive design, detailing base modules, platform sharing across vehicles, and standardization to reduce cost and development time while maintaining flexibility for different body types.

Explore how vehicle platforms form the structural core, including front and rear axles, wheelbase, steering, suspension, subframes, and powertrain packages, enabling platform sharing across sedans, hatchbacks, and SUVs.

Explore platform examples like the Volkswagen M Cubie and MLB platforms, showing modular, standardized construction with shared components, wheel-base variations, and adaptable powertrains for longitudinal front engine automobiles.

Explore how platform sharing and standardization cut cost and development time by using common parts across vehicle variants, streamline manufacturing, and reduce testing, while noting design challenges.

Develop and calibrate powertrain modules that integrate engine, transmission, and driveline early or in parallel with vehicle platforms, then calibrate and validate through durability, emissions, and performance tests.

Define packaging spaces and design spaces after vehicle architecture, then standardize powertrain and create fixed interfaces under a platform strategy for consistent system design.

Understand how integration and interfaces govern vehicle design by coordinating package clearances, recording interfaces among systems, and defining accountability within the integration team for physical, energy, and electrical connections.

Explore packaging and clearance concepts with examples showing brake lines needing clearance with suspension articulation to prevent entanglement and brake failure, and the Ferrari F50's compact packaging around the powertrain.

Map interfaces between engine and systems through a boundary diagram, identifying physical, heat transfer, and electrical interfaces such as cooling, ecu signals, fuel system, exhaust, engine mounts, and firewall considerations.

Packaging design space and functional design are tightly interlinked, shaping 3d layouts and driving tradeoffs when space is limited. Changes in system cascade to frame and body, prompting durability-related decisions.

Explore how suspension articulation creates a 3d envelope that governs wheel travel, protects the wheel well clearance, and informs bumper, body, and frame design during concept development.

Identify conflicts of interest early by addressing interface issues between the frame and body and maintaining proper clearances, guiding the vehicle integration team to negotiate tradeoffs across systems.

Capture and document every component, subassembly, and assembly in a bill of materials to record functional specs, materials, manufacturing processes, quantities, and costs within a hierarchical product structure.

Detail design introduces the transition from system design to production-ready specifications, detailing each subsystem and component for accurate interfaces, layouts, and nuts-and-bolts production readiness.

Product lifecycle management coordinates data and people across concept to production, serving as a central information hub managed by PLM software and enabling engineering release to manufacturing.

Explore the top-down breakdown of the vehicle as a system of systems into clusters and subassemblies, detailing suspension, steering, and engine components for production-ready specifications.

Learn how design failure mode and effects analysis (DFMEA) identifies and ranks failure modes, assesses severity, probability, and detection, and guides root-cause analysis and design improvements.

Outline a design verification plan from FEMA to address failure modes with test specifications, acceptance criteria, and sample levels from concept to production, plus virtual and physical testing.

Use the fishbone diagram to identify root causes of failure modes and resolve concerns at the end of design, highlighting contributing domains such as measurements, materials, personnel, methods, and environment.

Explore the ladder frame design process—from concept design and body-on-frame setup to packaging, detailing, virtual validation, manufacturability, and production release with durability and crash focus.

Explore vehicle performance domains, from acceleration and top speed to traction, drivability, ride and handling, and fuel efficiency, while examining crash safety, emissions, and reliability and durability.

Engineering simulations drive vehicle design validation across system and detailed design, from durability to crash analysis, noise and vibration, and aerodynamics, using virtual models refined by physical testing.

Explore how tooling evolves with prototype levels in automotive product design, from concept level prototype, verification prototypes, to final production tools, and why changes after release are costly.