Customer-Relevant Properties of Autonomous Vehicle Concepts

Abstract

Increasing automation of road-bound vehicles will lead to autonomous, driverless vehicle concepts. Although vehicle manufacturers are showing visions of such concepts, their design process is still not largely researched. New degrees of freedom will not only eliminate the driver’s workplace, but will also make it possible to pursue secondary activities. Thus, an investigation is needed to determine which customer-relevant properties can be used to describe autonomous vehicle concepts. We present a method to address the new degrees of freedom. The method begins with a definition of the customer structure and leads to the vehicle concept. We also make a proposal for customer-relevant properties of autonomous vehicle concepts. For this, two expert surveys, first expert interviews and second an expert workshop, were conducted and connected with knowledge from the literature. The result is a portfolio of twelve whole vehicle properties. We assert that the developed method with the identified costumer-relevant properties can become the basis for the adaptation of the automotive product development process to autonomous vehicles.