Developing a Passenger Car

This chapter provides outputs of tools used in the early phases of the automotive product development of an intermediate-size passenger car. The project involved the development of specifications of the 2030 Honda Accord by undertaking benchmarking of the latest available models of Honda Accord, Chevrolet Malibu, and Toyota Camry; studying applicable government regulations; and researching future trends in design and technologies. The data provided in the tables included in this chapter were gathered by the students by searching through various sources such as the vehicle brochures, websites of the vehicle manufacturers, and automotive magazines in a very limited time. The outputs covered in this chapter include (a) customer characteristics, (b) customer needs, (c) market segment, (d) benchmarking of the vehicles, (e) specification of the target vehicle, (f) Pugh diagrams comparing the target vehicle characteristics: customer needs, vehicle attributes, and vehicle systems with its reference and competitors’ vehicles, (g) technological plan including major changes, design challenges, and key open issues in the target vehicle development plan, (h) program timings and gateways, and (i) sales forecasts and financial analysis.