The future of the utility car market

The market of utility cars is one of the winning parties from the globalization process. Nevertheless, the industry sees itself strongly affected by the latest financial and economic crisis. The traded growth rates, especially those for India, China and Eastern Europe are now cleared off by market slumps. At the same time there is a huge increase of consolidation processes in the haulage and transport industry of the developed regions.

The life cycle of a vehicle in the utility car market nowadays stretches from 10 to 15 years, whilst the underlying vehicle concept remains. When it comes to the strategic alignment and product planning it is therefore necessary to think ahead of customer requirements, market developments and different operating conditions in the long run.

In the context of the circle‚ research and innovation from IHK Heilbronn-Franken, the idea of encouraging a scenario project for the utility car industry was discussed. Six well-known companies within the automotive industry; KS Kolbenschmidt, MAN Nutzfahrzeuge, Knorr-Bremse, ZF Friedrichshafen, Robert Bosch and MAGNA Powertrain, congregated and started this collaborative project.  During the project, extensive scenarios for the whole utility car market as well as partial scenarios for busses and trucks were created, evolved and linked.