The traditional automotive business model of passenger car manufacturing requires significant investment in production processes, tooling and assembly equipment. Major automakers must make a return on their investment in production infrastructure, producing millions of similar consumer vehicles in order to achieve low unit costs. For this reason it is difficult for emerging companies with potentially promising disruptive technology solutions to gain commercial entry into the automotive market.

ARPA-E has awarded a grant to Ricardo Strategic Consulting that will enable the company to investigate automotive capital expenditure barriers in detail and explore how novel manufacturing methods could reduce these challenges. This work opens the possibility to a new era of innovative automotive products tailored to consumer needs, as well as potentially reducing the time taken for new vehicle technology to reach the consumer.

Ricardo will collaborate with United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) to investigate alternative manufacturing methods from both a technical and economic perspective. To broaden the project’s insight and viewpoint, Ricardo will also seek the input of industry stakeholders including representatives of academia, traditional automotive manufacturers, and new market entrants. The study is aimed for completion in late 2015, and the findings will be publicly available.