General Motors Is Cutting Its Development Cycles in Half
For decades, automakers enjoyed a luxury that had nothing to do with the softest leather or the smoothest engines. Their luxury was time, with some popular cars and trucks enduring for a decade or longer before they received a full redesign. The clock is ticking faster now, thanks to China.
Key Takeaways
- BYD and other automakers there are speeding electric vehicles (EVs) and other models from drawing board to showrooms in two years or less.
General Motors is among the Western automakers striving to match that blistering pace, by harnessing AI and simulation to dramatically shorten development times.
- But first, Anderson offered a wide-lens view of how AI is transforming everything that came before.
Sterling Anderson, robotics guru and former Tesla executive, is pushing AI to accelerate GM's design process.
- The advent of virtual tools such as computer-aided design (CAD) and computational fluid dynamics in the 1950s kicked off a second age, he says.
Developers had better ways of doing work, but they remained siloed in an inefficient, pass-the-baton process.
- In roughly one minute, a structural engineer can see how a design change might affect a finished vehicle, as opposed to the 15 hours it used to take.
The result, he says, "is a dramatically accelerated product development process at GM."
- The tricky double lane change is a serious test of the electric SUV's handling and stability under duress.
Stats & Key Facts
- #GM lured Anderson last June as its chief product officer, offering a US $40 million package to guide the development of the automaker's cars, autonomous models, batteries, software, and other tech.
BYD and other automakers there are speeding electric vehicles (EVs) and other models from drawing board to showrooms in two years or less. General Motors is among the Western automakers striving to match that blistering pace, by harnessing AI and simulation to dramatically shorten development times. GM's effort is being spearheaded by Sterling Anderson , the technologist and robotics guru who led development teams for Tesla's Autopilot and the Model X before cofounding Aurora Innovation , the autonomous trucking company.
GM lured Anderson last June as its chief product officer, offering a US $40 million package to guide the development of the automaker's cars, autonomous models, batteries, software, and other tech. How GM Is Accelerating Its Designs In a recent video call, Anderson and Jason Fischer , GM's executive director of virtual integration engineering, walked me through the company's latest design processes. But first, Anderson offered a wide-lens view of how AI is transforming everything that came before.
Sterling Anderson, robotics guru and former Tesla executive, is pushing AI to accelerate GM's design process. General Motors Anderson sees design and human ingenuity falling into three main epochs, beginning with thousands of years of empirical design that saw creators largely mimicking nature, building and testing models, and advancing from there-slowly, expensively, and narrowly focused. "Flight is a great example," Anderson says.
For more details please read the original article at IEEE Spectrum AI.
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