We’ve come a long way from the early days of driving around in 3-wheeled cars. Customers today want more and more high-tech features to fit their busy, always-on lives. However, growing customer needs mean that automakers and designers have to deal with more complexity, new ideas, and security issues.
To keep up with these changing demands for both current and future vehicles, designers must include robust technologies in the chip design process at an early stage in order to execute complicated systems efficiently and securely. A foundational technology in this field is digital twins, an emerging global market that’s predicted to surpass $8.8 billion in 2029.
But what is it really?
Digital Twins in Cars
As the name suggests, a digital twin is a digital replica of a physical thing. It’s like a computer copy of a real picture. Using this digital version, you can see all the important info coming from the object at the moment. It is possible to follow and keep tabs on certain sensors, based on the system. This makes it possible to capture and replicate the surroundings of the system, including the roadway, the weather, items or systems in the area, and so on.
When it comes to cars, simulation is where digital twins really shine. Instead of using real cars, it’s easier and cheaper to use a simulation to practice crash tests, self-driving cars, and other situations.
By using AI and ML, a digital twin may also aid in the early detection of problems before they manifest on the real twin. This means that the actual twin can be fixed before a problem happens in the real world. Let’s take a closer look at the use cases.
How Digital Twins Improves the Automotive Industry
While many believed in the potential of this technology for different sectors, including automotive, few could predict that this technology would be crucial for car manufacturers. Let’s just look at the ten use cases of digital twins in the automotive industry.
Preventing Development Errors
Recently, there have been big changes in how car companies create new products. Because of tough competition and rising demand, product creation processes are faster and there are more changes in the same product. At this point, even the smallest mistake in judgment can cost a business a lot of money and hurt its image. At this point, utilizing digital twins would help keep things from going wrong.
A digital twin combines data from many stages of a product’s life cycle and works with different parties to help creators finish the car idea. To make sure the model is secure, the product must go through many tests that cover a wide range of situations. These models work a lot better when they have their own twins.
Pre-sale and after-sale Maintenance
When it comes to diagnosing and maintaining vehicles, digital twin technologies might revolutionize the industry. In fact, the technology has changed the equipment maintenance industry for the better, with experts predicting that the market will expand at a 25% pace through 2032
This technology can help manufacturers keep an eye on a vehicle’s operation, predict problems, and even suggest fixes by making an updated digital copy of the car. It’s similar to having an in-house tech on board who can see problems coming and figure out what’s wrong before they happen.
There is a digital twin of every part of your car that works just like the real thing. These small changes are picked up by the digital twin when something goes wrong, like when a component begins to break or when a system stops working as it should.
By looking at this data, the digital twin can guess what problems might happen, suggest scheduled service, or let the driver know that a problem is about to happen. This could be a battery that is about to die or a deteriorated brake pad.
For instance, in a flash, Tesla Motors can resolve any issue, no matter how big or little, with its cars by only installing software upgrades. Through the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), data is constantly sent between the cars and the Tesla plant. This helps make Tesla cars better every day.
Real-time Data Capturing
Virtual and synthetic systems that work together provide accurate data analysis for both the present and the past. All the data is kept in real-time, including details on when production stops or when the setup changes. This will help you figure out when your tools might stop working.
So, decision-makers can plan for production to continue without interruptions with little loss. By looking at the car’s service records, the car salesman knows exactly what to sell. This helps you figure out what the customer wants and makes the experience better for them while they’re moving. You can also easily share the data you’ve gathered from different sources at the same time.
Quality Assurance
By using the digital twin, we can achieve both predictive and prescriptive quality assurance. The digital twin can constantly gather information and create a replica of the process. This lets it estimate where quality problems might occur. Using trends or other modifications in process factors, the digital twin of historical data can also identify quality problems with providers and suggest ways to stop them.
New Product Development (NPD) methods use digital twins to make an image of the new item, and assemblers can digitally walk through the process of putting together the new model to find possible problems and quality issues. When this method is used, the time it takes to introduce a new product can be cut down by a large amount. Dealing with quality problems during the process design stage boosts the line’s throughput and stops quality problem spikes caused by new products or updates to existing products.
Personalization
Digital twins can be a very useful tool for personalizing experiences in the car business. Brands can give customers ideas that are specific to their needs by making a virtual copy of the customer and their car.
Based on a customer’s digital twin, a seller can make ideas for vehicles that are exactly what the customer wants and needs. The digital twin will have information like what they’ve bought before, what they like, and comments. By personalizing things in this way, the customer has a better and easier shopping experience.
It doesn’t end at the cash register, though. After a car is bought, its digital twin keeps an eye on its state and how it is used all the time. If there is an issue, the digital twin can show the owner how to fix it simply. Or even make an appointment for help if you need to.
Besides that, this technology can also help with preventive services. One example is that the digital twin knows that the car’s tires probably need to be changed soon. It can let the owner know and even offer the best ways to fix it.
Customers are happier and more loyal to a brand when they feel like they are heard and valued. They have an easy time with both technology and customer service, and their requests are fulfilled before they even say what they want.
Supply Chain
Digital twins make an exact copy of all the things in a plant and their locations in the supply chain. It’s easy to model the deals, third-party connections, and transportation paths with this information. This saves a lot of money on transportation and the supply chain, and it keeps the company flexible by letting it respond to changes more quickly.
The cost of logistics is directly related to how heavy a part is how many times it touches other parts during the production process and when it is put together with the main product. Heavy machinery makers can use what they learn from the digital twin system to make the processes inside the plant much better. The digital twin can suggest better routes by simulating and diagnosing them over and over again.
Testing Self-Driving Cars
Self-driving cars have to handle a lot of different incidents and make quick choices. It can be hard and dangerous to test these events in real life. This is where manufacturers use digital twins.
Using these twins creates a secure online space where automakers can try self-driving cars. To test the vehicle, they simulate it in several different environments. These scenes can be in any kind of place, from busy urban areas to secluded country roads, and from sunny skies to rainy nights.
A Digital twin can mimic anything, like how the car reacts when a person quickly steps out onto the road or how it gets through a busy crossing. It’s useful for more than just making sure that self-driving cars meet safety standards when they are being tested and validated. These virtual tests give a lot of information that can be used to improve and fine-tune how well vehicles work. This makes self-driving cars better and more efficient.
Employee Training & Factory Floor Safety
The car business now has more ways to train workers and keep them safe thanks to digital twin technologies. In a virtual world, they can copy a whole production line or just one piece of equipment. And workers can learn new skills and gain confidence through this thorough and involved training.
To learn, you have to make mistakes, but in this case, they don’t have any real-world effects. When employees move to the factory floor, they already know what their jobs are and how to do them.
That being said, digital twins aren’t just for training. They are also very important for making sure workers are safe. They can mimic different safety situations so that workers can learn about possible dangers and how to deal with them.
On top of that, this technology can help find security holes in the production line, which makes the workplace safer.
Sustainable Design
For the car business, digital twins are like an eco-friendly conscience. In fact, according to a study, 92% of manufacturers stated that this technology has improved their ability to create sustainable products. They record the full range of a vehicle’s environmental impact, from the idea stage to getting on the road.
With digital twins, you can model and look closely at every part of a car’s life cycle to see how energy-efficient it is. They let you try out different materials, styles, and methods to find the most eco-friendly and waste-free ones, all before you start the car in the real world.
It’s like having a simulation that tells you how every design choice will affect the world. It is possible to predict a new model’s performance in terms of sustainability while it is still in the conceptualization phase.
Sales
Digital twins have changed the way people buy cars in a big way. More and more, sales are becoming more like services, where the customer makes unique demands. For example, a customer could only be willing to pay for a particular feature. By creating a 360° view of each car, the seller can help turn on or off any feature based on the user’s needs, which improves the overall experience for the customer.
In addition to helping with cross-selling and upselling, manufacturers and dealers gain a full view of consumer tastes and habits.
Bottom Line
All of these applications are only scratching the surface of what digital twins may do for the car industry in the future. Because this technology can help cars and designers in big ways, it’s now a key part of the industry’s progress.
Of course, having a reliable digital twin solution ties in with different IT, 360 photography, and videography services because a simulation is only good if the visual copy has enough detail and clarity to exactly mimic the real-life object.
So, if you plan on using this technology and need a reliable team of experts to help you with capturing 360 visuals, our team has all the tools and skills you may need. Also, don’t hesitate to contact us if you’re interested in setting up a quality virtual tour of your car dealership or manufacturing facility.
