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Driving the Future is a podcast about where the automotive industry is going, and how not only to keep up with the rapidly changing business, but to shape it.
Fueled by such factors as the climate crisis and the digital revolution, the automotive industry is changing. Whether we’re talking about autonomous cars and electric vehicles or the new customer experiences that digital technologies enable, whether it’s transforming from being an auto manufacturer into an organization that provides mobility services, the map of the industry is being re-drawn. Are you going to follow the path that others lay out, or grab the wheel and shape the future of mobility yourself? The promise of technology is big, but how do you get there?
Driving the Future is a podcast by Capgemini.
Web - https://www.capgemini.com/gb-en/insights/research-library/driving-the-future-a-podcast-series/
Email - Podcasts.cor@capgemini.com
Driving the Future - Episode 3 transcript
Speakers: Jean-Marie Lapeyre, Alexandre Audoin, & Yannick Raynaud.
[Music playing]
Jean-Marie: Welcome to Driving the Future, a podcast by Capgemini. In this podcast, we discuss where the automotive industry is going and how automakers cannot just keep up with the rapidly change of business, but to shape it.
In this episode, we're looking at how software development is accelerating the automotive industry, from in-car experiences to autonomous driving, to car design, and ultimately, manufacturing.
As the industry turns to being more software focused, the prominence of artificial intelligence and other integrated connected services is being used to take a leading position if used correctly.
Alexandre: When we talk about innovation today in automotive, we talk about software. When we talk about software, we talk about talent, and we talk about the competition we have in this field with other industries and other stakeholders.
Jean-Marie: That's Alexandre Audoin, the Executive Vice President and Head of Automotive at Capgemini. Alexandre is a lifelong automotive enthusiast who leads the Capgemini Group Automotive Practice.
This role brings together his strengths in engineering, consulting, digital and data to help the world's leading automotive OEMs embrace digital transformation to accelerate the arrival of sustainable mobility to get the future they want and deserve.
And in this episode, Alexandra is joined by Yannick Raynaud.
Yannick: Even if we're producing for entry level car, it's a competition between the actors. It's a competition between the suppliers and their partners. It's an industry that change all the time, and this is why we have so much patience in this industry.
Jean-Marie: Yannick Raynaud is the Group Scientific Director at Plastic Omnium. As the automotive industry continues to transform and broaden to include mobility services, Yannick has been tasked with accompanying the group transformation, increasing collaborations with laboratories, SMEs, and all other technology partners.
He's also establishing new technological partnerships together with all divisions of the Plastic Omnium Group.
Yannick: A lot of challenge for the automotive industry in this post-pandemic area, I believe that we’ve all seeing the disruption and the change in the supply chain, we have new actors that are really vertically integrated. We have even worse or let's say worldwide competitions or more and more competitors which are very, very fast.
And so, what's mattered now is how we can bring good product, good innovation quickly on the market in order to keep our shares as suppliers of parts, suppliers of systems, and supplier of innovation.
And here, the strategy might be the key. When I mean strategy, is to align with more sustainability, safer and a unique product. For this uniqueness, we have the chance to use a software, software defined vehicle area, are now opening a lot of opportunities.
Also new regulations, we are transforming the new regulations into opportunities and not constraints. The battery passport, for instance, will be something that we will discuss today. I think it's a great opportunity to develop services on top of just delivering parts.
Alexandre: When it comes to challenges, automotive companies have a mindset of developing product and services over months and years. With the pace of the change taking place in technology today, this needs to be much, much quicker. Mindset is one thing. Having access to the right talent and skills is the next challenge.
This is where it makes sense to have access to trusted partner to work actually in an ecosystem, and to have partner that they help you to innovate, either by identifying the right opportunities for the new product and services, or to help you to execute to your own ideas, even to help you to maintain your existing product and services.
Partnership plays a key role in helping companies ideate and implement at the pace that is required today. We have many examples of this at Capgemini with our clients.
Jean-Marie: Technologies such as artificial intelligence are accelerating innovation with the automotive industry at a rapid pace. I wanted to know more about Alexandre and Yannick's experience with this tech, and if there are any concerns which could also be seen as an opportunity to explore new business areas.
Yannick explains.
Yannick: At Plastic Omnium, we've been using machine learning for quite a long time, not in the design page, but really, in the process.
We have quite a diverse type of product from safety features like fuel tank to more external body parts where the look and feel and the external shape should be really perfect. And so, we have been using computer vision and machine learning quite extensively.
But to bounce back on what Alexandre was saying, yes, it's true that now gen AI is gaining our R&D department, and it's more to augment and upskill our people or to focus our engineers on real added value.
For instance, we have some partnership beyond Capgemini, also with other players of the ecosystem in order to automate for a functional given volumes how many sales we can put in these volumes.
And so, the automatic design which is generated in order for the engineer to select between three or four best type of configuration. And this is about going fast, going fast to the best solution, and avoiding a late iteration. So, this is really what we want to achieve with gen AI coming to R&D department.
But on top of this, Plastic Omnium has developed in-house software house which is called Open Soft. And within this software house, we are generating software for the automotive industry, autos are based. But with our partner, Capgemini, we need of course, to deliver something which is cyber secure, which is well-documented.
And for instance, on that point, the documentation, it could be easily completed or drafted by gen AI. And then our software architect would just have to put the additional added value he wants to bring in.
Alexandre: Yeah, about technology to speed up innovation, there is a famous trend as of today which is AI or gen AI. So, we see at Capgemini, AI for accelerating the development times or to enhance the in-car experience.
So, of course, there are some interesting use cases within the car design and manufacturing. We know that AI and digital twins can help to dramatically increase the speed of development and testing, and for sure, to reduce the time to be ready for the start of production.
One of the more interesting ways and one of the key areas is the area of the in-car infotainment. Indeed, what we see some brands are already doing in this area of AI-driven personal assistant or companions …
You can imagine an experience where the car or rather the avatar is able to endure a simple requests via voice command, but also use sensor to detect driver tiredness or mood and adjust, for example, the cockpit experience like the temperature, the music or the light in the car to help the driver finally to feel good in the car.
This is interesting because it has a really strong potential to strengthen the connection between driver and automotive brand, which can lead the stronger loyalty and opportunities to sell additional services.
We see example of AI being used to enhance in-car experiences today already. This is at the earth of BMW's Dee Concept, Mercedes Benz has integrated the use of ChatGPT in their car, and many Chinese brands offer quite advanced AI assistance. Although, we don't really know how well they will resonate with customer outside of China yet.
Yannick: We need to train our people and how to make the best use of this new type of tools. We really need to avoid biases: bias in the usage, bias in the learning. And so, the quality of how to use is key. It's going to be through investing on our people in trainings really.
The additional point we are all fearing I believe in the automotive industry is about the IP, how to protect my IP. We are speaking about OpenAI and open is something that the automotive players do not really like. So, we really need with our partner and within Plastic Omnium to be able to put in place a secure development cluster, I would say.
We need to put inside our design rules, our experience knowhow, but we don't want this to be leaked on the on the internet. In the same time, we want to use all the latest generation and development, which are provided by the ecosystem and the openness of OpenAI and other players.
So, that's why we are relying on Capgemini and their expertise in order to be sure that we get the best setup of tooling to develop this.
Again, what I say, we will start with them working on software development, and for the embedded software for the automotive application. But really, our management will like to expand this AI use to all the support function. It could be finance, it could be HR, there is here a new area which is coming.
But the key words I would like to share with you here is we are not going to trust machine, and we are not going to take as granted what the computer is going to say. We really need to keep control and to put human intelligence first. So, for us, we really did not intend to replace people, we just intend to augment them.
We get 20% more capacity, it could be pace, it could be more task achieved, less annoying task. This is what we are targeting in order to keep our talent and to foster new innovation in lighting, in hydrogen application, in battery systems, or even other applications.
Alexandre: Yeah, so about the concern coming from AI or coming from the software openness, as with any new technology, with new opportunities comes new risk.
So, as vehicles and mobility services become more dependent on software, theoretically becomes more exposed to cybersecurity threats. So, this is an area where AI can be deployed to test security at scale and simulate various different types of attacks. So, it's also an opportunity.
Jean-Marie: Sustainability within the automotive industry is a huge topic, and clients and customers expect sustainable targets to be taken seriously. I asked Alexandre, what could be done to ensure the industry has a positive environmental impact?
Alexandre: Obviously, sustainability is very, very important and it's interesting, the industry understand that sustainability is incredibly important globally. It's important not only because of the regulation that are coming into effect, but also because we know that customer and talent expect that the automotive brand that choose tech sustainability seriously.
And yet unfortunately, we see in two separate Capgemini research reports that sustainability initiative have stalled somewhat and are not receiving as much attention as they deserve.
Software and data can play a big role in accelerating progress towards sustainability. Through AI and the use of data, the environmental impact of the supply chain operation, logistic and manufacturing can be reduced.
Better access to data and data analytics capabilities will play a key role in managing reporting and improving environmental impact. In-car software, sensor and data analysis will help driver drive in a way that minimise environmental impact.
The last but not the least, digital twins, with time data, AI can play an important role in developing and virtually testing and simulating battery performance, enabling a faster uptake of electric mobility and more efficient use of finite resources.
Somehow, I'm convinced that technology will support our stakes for a more sustainable mobility.
Yannick: Really, the industry metaverse and how to virtually test several scenario from the supply chain to the production and to manage the scarcity of some resource, how to optimise the energy consumption while we are producing our parts, I think it's key. And thanks to these new tools and techniques, we can test much more scenario in a really safe way, taking the best of it as optimization.
Back to the sustainability question: we do have a complete plan for the free scopes in order to reach our net zero. As you say, it could be about our processes, about our factories. It could be also about our products.
We are well-engaged into going to hydrogen for EV duty mobility, and we really need to look at the complete picture, at the complete ecosystem. We cannot work on one solution for the automotive without looking at the infrastructure.
I mean, for recharge, optimization of the charging when you charging. And if everybody plugs at 7:00 PM (you know this story), then we are down on the grid. So, it's all about communication, as you said, Alexandre, it's all about the ecosystem. And I think we cannot succeed alone.
We need some partners from the communication to the data centre in order to address it globally. And that we have a look on each step of the sustainability and the usage. Because when we ask a question on Chat GPT, if it's going to consume one litre of water to cool down the Nvidia processor, then we have an issue at the end of the day.
So, we really need to have the big picture, take everything into account in order to take the right decision.
Jean-Marie: We know electrification has a huge part to play in the future of sustainable mobility and transport, but what role can software play in accelerating the development and production of battery cells?
Alexandre and Yannick elaborate on why investing in this sector is so important for the automotive industry.
Alexandre: Yeah, simulation and testing of the battery cells, so I'm proud to say that we have a virtual battery design capability within our Capgemini Engineering Organization. It's based in Germany, and we work in partnership with top German academic institution to virtualize and use AI to understand, modelize and simulate the physical properties of battery cells.
By doing this, we help our client reducing their effort and their investment, and we help the client to accelerate the development process and to master the boundary condition and conduct sensitivity analysis to increase the forecast quality.
In this way, we are really advancing Europe's battery industry and helping our clients speed up the uptake of the electric mobility.
Yannick: Let me continue on this, if you may, Alexandre. The division e-power of Plastic Omnium is delivering battery to the industry from 48 volts to much higher voltage and also, the EV duty industry together with our fuel cell or standalone.
So, testing about battery management system, how to reuse cells, how to balance age cells with brand new cells is really a key issue where the technology, the modelling and the testing will play a key role.
So, yes, we are really investing into digital twin for our product in order to feed the database from the early testing in the R&D, then again, on car testing together all the data of the battery management system while we are in pre-series and pre-running. And of course, in use, because it's really in use that we will be able to monitor what will be the ageing and the remaining capacity of the battery.
And on that point, on that standpoint, over the air date could also be a key enabler in order to have longer usage of the battery. And again, back to the previous question, I give more sustainability because we do not replace too early, but we can replace later, or we can also develop services with what is the real remaining value of the battery in the vehicle.
Today, when you purchase a secondhand car, you don't know what is the state of the ICE engine, if the guy is really accelerating when the oil is still cold. But with a digital twin, everything can be recorded.
And I do agree with Alexandre, some regulation turned out to be some good opportunities for us in order to put in place such type of technology and improve the product, improve the sustainability, develop new service for the better of the planet and the ease of use for the end user.
Jean-Marie: As we explored in our previous episode, the software-driven transformation is changing customer expectations and providing us with new means to reach sustainability goals.
I asked Alexandre what the software driven transformation of the automotive industry means for how companies attract and retain tech talent.
Alexandre: As Yannick mentioned, talent is a key question for every automotive company. There is a saying that every company is now a software company. This is true in automotive, but it's not as simple as just going out and hiring your own software engineer and procuring software development services. You need to consider the culture, the mindset, your organisational structure.
Somehow, there are several option to consider. Hire all new staff, try to re-skill the existing staff, enter into partnership working in an ecosystem with newer existing vendors, and create maybe new entities, and still to continue to proceed and to perform your legacy because somehow you need also to continue to perform your legacy.
So, you need to take decision about which approaches to take, which platform to choose, and more. And then you have to think about whether your existing culture is relevant and appealing that you are seeking to hire or if you need to have a stronger partnership and ecosystem. In this mandate that we work with Plastic Omnium, by the way.
Yannick: Exactly, Alexandre. It's a challenge to attract talent on a worldwide basis because we are opening our software house which is now working on 12 different sites around the globe and running with 150 people, and we have a target to reach 250 people.
It's not just hiring offers, you're completely right. We need to offer them the best development plan, the best tools, and the best opportunity to change the world. I think young people, young talents are taking care about their working conditions and what do they do, how it'll impact the planet more and more.
So, giving them some training on agile, continuous integration, continuous development. Again, to be faster in producing better sustainability systems or solutions is a key. What we want to offer them within our software house is the possibility to switch between the different division and the different projects.
I think it's key to stay alert and to say, “Okay, tomorrow, I could work on this hydrogen system or the day after tomorrow, I would work on a battery system or maybe a lighting system for more safety and intercommunication with the pedestrian, the cyclist and so on.”
But again, we think the HR support is key. Upskilling qualification are mandatory. We were speaking about how to use AI, how to avoid bias. This is a key part of the training and the upscaling.
And also, we need to stay alert. As I say, we need to stay open, we need to open partnership and to take the better of it, whether it come from Mexico, whether it come from India, whether it come from China.
I know Alex, you have a quite a big team in India, and I would like to hear about how you integrate such a diversity of people.
Alexandre: So, the diversity of how do we integrate that, I think first of all, you need to have large coverage to make sure that you will retain talent. You need to have labs, because automotive is also a question of passion.
So, you need to have lab also to promote the teams to bring their own innovation. So, that's first, the scale. Second, to bring them in a discussion about innovation to bring the progress here.
Yannick: Truly agree. And when we see what's happening on the Chinese market when they're putting new technology or new innovation very fast on the new player or the traditional player, maybe you have a fancy display on a bumper where you can get shocks. We from Europe is asking, but why do we see this in the Shanghai Uto show? That's very nice looking, but that's not really functional and that's going to be a need for repair at that place.
But China has a chance to be able to make this test. And they're not afraid, they're not over engineering as maybe we are doing in the old Europe to complete what you said — I think to have the overview of what's happening in the new players: Tesla, Rivian and so on in the U.S. or Lucid of course, and what's happening in China, is key for us to develop the best product and to stay at the edge of the technology and at the edge of the offering.
Also, of course, not only about product, but of course, about services and digitalization of the human to machine interface and how we interact. This was your first entry on the topic Alexandre, and I think it's clear that the human to machine interaction also have a lot as an evolution potential.
Alexandre: One hundred percent agree, Yannick. So, there are different expectation in each market from a customer point of view. As you say, the Chinese UI will be very different to the one design for European and North American users.
When it comes to the software topics and how to strengthen the organisation to make sure that they can have the right approaches towards this new challenge, it's very interesting to see from a talent perspective how those organisations will bring talent in their organisation.
So, we see the example of CARIAD, which is a software arm of the VW Group. They have various different regional offices in North America, Europe, China, which means that they are well equipped to cater to local markets, somehow. We have seen also Volvo opening a software hubs in Poland, and I expect to see much more action as you said in India.
So, what is important here is when we talk about innovation today in automotive, we talk about software. When we talk about software, we talk about talent and we talk about the competition we have in this field with other industries and other stakeholders coming from telecom, coming from media, coming from everywhere on the planet, and to move the legacy towards new country and new talent in the world is key.
Yannick: One additional comment on that point, software is doing a lot of things, but software alone is doing nothing. Software is always relying on some hardware, some sensors, some actuators.
And you were mentioning previously to the fact that we can give to your employees some labs, some innovations, and I completely agree. In China, we have a testing ground, a giant proving ground, I believe, to test a new idea which is good.
When I go to look at the product we have in Plastic Omnium for lighting, when we are speaking about OLED, Mini LED, various type of display, flexible LED, of course, then everything also is related to hardware, and the software will only serve in order to improve this hardware and to control it.
So, to have somehow in each part of the world, an ecosystem of innovators with the software team close by, enable a fast time to market or increase of the TRL level, technical readiness level for really innovation coming out of the lab in order to bring them to automotive standards and to have them in the road tomorrow morning.
Alexandre: Yeah, actually, your equation to convince a person, so you know me. So, of course, you're right, software is just a way to manage and to move data. So, without hardware, you have nothing. So, that's fairly true.
Jean-Marie: In the rapidly developing automotive industry, I was curious to find out what Yannick and Alexandre expected the major changes in automotive design to be in the next five years.
Yannick: For us, new technology, new innovation needs to be safe. So, I would say safety first. That when we bring hydrogen, when we begin a new battery chemistry on the markets, we are ready to use without any possible drift in term of quality and safety.
So, safer, it's about the product, the way we are engineering the product, all the regulation standards we are complying with.
It'll be also greener as we said, and unique in order to differentiate. I believe that our colleagues, the OEM are requesting a really unique solution in terms of lighting integration or in terms of management of the thermal of the battery or the fuel cell and what we can do in terms of morphing of these surfaces to let air in or out is a key and of course, connected.
What we see as a new technology in the coming five years would certainly come from sensors. Quantum sensing, it's really going to change the deal in term of getting accurate accelerometer, accurate positioning in a very, very small and compact way.
So, it'll enable a quite different integration. Still a lot of work to be done on this quantum sensing, but it's really promising. And as we say, we started with this, it's a competition.
Even if we're producing for entry level car, it's a competition between the actors, it's a competition between the suppliers and their partners. And every year it's a new challenge and it's an industry that change all the time with new technology and this is why we have so much patience in this industry.
Alexandre: As Yannick said, the safety and trust are key. We'll see more progress towards autonomous driving and I'm confident has not to be neglected somehow. Also, the personalization of a car will go beyond the infotainment system and the screen we have in the car. As Yannick said, it'll be also on the body of the car, which is quite nice.
I'm also interested to see whether car makers will move towards open or common standards, when comes the question of the software-driven transformation, software driven vehicle and to work in an ecosystem. It's starting, but has to continue.
And when it comes to sustainability to topics, I hope that the sharing of data will give us new perspective. And there is also the potential to reduce some of the exposure of the supply chain [inaudible 00:27:14].
And you also expect to see many more micro vehicles, the type that enable quick, convenient, emission-free mobility without the hassle of driving a big SUV. So, somehow, this is good for sustainability.
Yannick: To address completely the challenge and maybe to optimise really our systems, we really need to look at the complete ecosystem, the complete infrastructure, including the politics.
If we don't have this 360-degree view on the complete system, we can act only on the local part and not finding the global optimum. So, we really need to engage all the ecosystem, all the partners in that exchange.
You mentioned sharing data, yes, completely true. There may be some regulation about standards of communication also, and to have the politics engaged, but really, it'll be with partner, Plastic Omnium and Capgemini are partnering. It'll be with additional one like Microsoft for instance, that we will succeed to bring really disruptive solution or even if they are not disruptive, really optimised solution.
The key takeaway I would like also to keep from our exchange to this morning, Alexandre is about people. Human are in the middle of this transformation. Our engineer are not going to be replaced by OpenAI.
They will be augmented by it, and we need to keep control on this. And as you said, trusted and the trust in the automotive industry is key for long-term partnership and profitable business.
Alexandre: I'm not worried about the negative impact of gen AI on our engineer set totally aligned with you that it'll help them to go further and to improve the methodology and to have a, I would say, faster development.
[Music playing]
Jean-Marie: The opportunity to shape the automotive industry is very prevalent, and in this episode, we've heard how every automotive organisation will have to make some key decisions for the future around their own culture, mindset and organisational structure as they proceed to adopt tech innovations.
They really have to think about the working environments they offer across the world, offering the best development plan to young talent and really show what their collective impact has upon the world we all live in.
Developments in sustainability tech, battery simulation and artificial simulation are also helping to propel the automotive industry into a very exciting future.
Thank you to our guests, Alexandra Audoin and Yannick Raynaud. And thank you too for listening to this episode of Driving the Future by Capgemini. See you next time.