Today's News by Jack Nerad for Driving Today

Building Cars Faster

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

They say they don't build 'em like they used to, and now there's more evidence of that than ever.  While each vehicle part used to be meticulously tested in real-world conditions, now the same special effects technology that helped make the Spiderman and Harry Potter movies is now helping to produce the latest vehicles in less time and with lower costs.
 
Car manufacturers are taking advantage of the computer -- simulation technology often used in big-budget movies to build vehicles many times over virtually, before ever manufacturing a single part. Previously, manufacturers had to use a trial-and-error process of producing prototypes to test how and if they would work. This process was expensive and time-consuming.

With the new technology, manufacturers can discover durability and product-fit issues with individual parts before producing them in vast quantities. Manufacturers can even crash a vehicle virtually to see how it performs. And the technology lowers costs. General Motors credits the technology with cutting product development costs by 40 percent.

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