Computer science. Electrical engineering. Mechatronics. Civil engineering. Software engineering. Mechanical engineering. All of these professions play a major role in the future of the automotive industry. Which field is the most relevant or will have the biggest impact? Maybe that is not the right question to ask.
Autonomous driving tends to be the hottest topic in industry these days, alongside electric cars and ride sharing. But where do these trends place the civil or mechanical engineers?
Take civil engineering. A fully autonomous driving, electric, ride sharing world will have a big impact on the surrounding infrastructure. Autonomous ride sharing cars will eliminate the need for parking lots and driveways. There will be no need for conventional traffic lights and street signs intended for human drivers. Space once taken by barren parking lots will be filled with housing, parks or other resourceful and useful things.
Take mechanical engineering. The rise of the electric car will eventually halt the development of internal combustion engines, in a way similar to how electronic calculators halted the development of mechanical ones. Mechanical engineers will have more time to focus on light-weighting, optimized tire technology, sustainable materials and so on. But machine learning will drastically change these roles. Take a look at this structural node designed and manufactured with the help of machine learning and 3d printing. If machine learning takes over the role of mechanical design, where will the mechanical engineer’s time be spent?
There is no avoiding that, as Andrew Ng coined it, machine learning is the new electricity. There is no industry that will not be drastically changed by machine learning. But I think a misconception I’ve had is that everyone needs to focus solely on developing machine learning of learning as much as possible about it. This notion is like thinking that everyone needs to learn about the detailed physics of electrical systems and how to develop more efficient ones. Of course, it was also important to think about the applications of electricity in various specific domains. Machine learning can be seen as a tool engineers can use to apply their domain-specific knowledge and solve more problems than ever before.
The automotive industry like the medical industry, is becoming more of an information technology by the day. Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns keeps becoming more relevant and will change the industry at an unprecedented rate. Many companies will die off, new, unexpected ones will form, and the current ones, most courageous and embracing to change will keep afloat.