Page 35 - ATZ11 November 2019 Professional

AUTHOR

Alfred Lethbridge, Ph. D. B. Sc.
is Research Engineer at
Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics
in Bristol (UK).

MILLENIALS ARE CHANGING
THE GOAL POSTS

Many of the trends – such as shared
mobility driving passenger car sharing –
are heavily influenced by millennials.
This generation is, for example, ques-
tioning if it is necessary to possess a
vehicle of their own [1] – even though
it is expected to reach the destinations
without any hassle, on time and, most
importantly, comfortably. However,
one is confronted with a very different
reality each day: getting to work for that
9:00 am meeting is a journey often as -
sociat ed with stress and subject to a
number of circumstances outside of our
control. Research shows that the entire
experience can negatively impact one’s
health. [2]
As particularly millennials across the
globe are more willing than other gener-
ations to use car sharing or similar ser-
vices already, they are redefining the
parameters of the car of the future com-
pletely. At the same time, millennials
increasingly investing in new vehicles –
sometimes even their first of their own.
Car manufacturers need to anticipate
how such preferences and expectations
might influence decisions of this new
generation to buy vehicles, as these peo-
ple are already solely responsible for
growth in North American car sales. [3]
These different expectations raise new
challenges for car manufacturers at dif-
© Chesky_W | Getty Images | iStock While small things like USB ports for
ferent points in the interior design pro-
cess and the devil is often in the details.
charging smartphones count toward this,
making sure that the driver and his pas-
sengers are as comfortable as possible
means that two of the most important
improvements are how comfortable the

scape in the interior is. This is high on
ATZ worldwide 11|2019 seat is, as well as how quiet the sound- 29