FISITA 2025: How Megatrends Are Transforming Vehicle Planning

One thing is abundantly clear after the FISITA 2025 World Mobility Conference (WMC) in Barcelona earlier this month: megatrends impact everything in the automotive industry.

Key vehicle development features like chassis technology, braking systems, and safety validation can no longer operate in isolation—they are increasingly influenced by broader trends such as electrification, the AI revolution, and the emergence of software-defined vehicles (SDVs).

Speakers at FISITA 2025 reinforced that electrification is firmly embedded in the automotive industry’s future, particularly in Europe, where regulatory-driven momentum faces less resistance than in North America.

However, cracks in EV adoption rates are beginning to appear in several regions due to cost pressures and consumer pushback.

One of the keynote speeches at the event was from José Muñoz, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company. Muñoz emphasized the importance of electrifying the company’s portfolio, but this was on the proviso that there needs to be a healthy EV product mix tailored to each key market.

“We double down on EVs, we don't back away. We believe this is the right strategy for the future…” he said. “When everyone is looking at globalization, we are localizing.”

In North America, Hyundai plans to invest $21 billion over the next four years, using the investment to grow its EV production and compete with major brands like Tesla. The OEM’s strategy includes increased production volume at its West Point plant in the US state of Georgia, as well as installing “autonomous manufacturing technology” at its newly opened and neighboring Savannah factory.

Hyundai’s president also announced that the hydrogen-powered Nexo nameplate aims to achieve nearly 1,000km range. The SUV delivers around half that distance; its next-generation platform is expected to begin production in 2032. Despite this ambitious development, S&P Global Mobility expects fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) like the Hyundai Nexo to represent a negligible percentage of the OEM’s output for the long term (forecast to produce fewer than 20,000 FCEVs in 2035).

One key question raised was how OEM investments in SDVs—which were designed with electric architecture in mind—will be ‘retrofitted’ or re-engineered for  Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)-powered vehicles should the latter platforms be extended. This conundrum is particularly concerning for carmakers and automotive suppliers focused outside the European market.

Ford, for example, recently scrapped its FNV4 flagship software architecture. While the platform was set to unify software across all powertrains, it proved too costly and complex a venture to continue. One lesson taken from this case is that, even though ICE vehicles can benefit from over-the-air updates, true SDVs require the simplicity of EV architecture to flourish.

Members of OEM planning and engineering departments also discussed how SDVs could potentially be a problem for legacy tier-1 suppliers and carmakers that seem most ripe for extreme disruption from those ahead in this area, namely Chinese brands.

In addition to benefitting from a head start, relatively newer OEMs like Chery also tend to have a vehicle development cycle of 10 months, which is in stark contrast to traditional cycles of 3-5 years. This means that legacy carmakers are falling dangerously short of the widening gap.

This timeline advantage is compounded by Chinese OEMs’ focus on customer service. For instance, Xiaomi makes production decisions based on feedback gathered from regular consumer clinics. Importantly, prioritizing this feedback over that of even its own engineers’ views, results in meaningful and timely vehicle updates.

As the megatrends of electrification, AI, and SDVs continue to dominate the industry, one common thread emerged throughout the conversations at FISITA 2025: when it comes to vehicle planning and production, collaboration and knowledge sharing between automotive and software engineers must improve. Both parties can propose excellent independent solutions, but they often do not consider the other’s limitations or needs; this initial friction point only grows throughout the production process.

The traditional approach to vehicle development—building physical prototypes and adjusting through supplier calibration and validation—is proving increasingly outdated. General Motors, for example, recognizes the need to shift toward a fully virtual design process to keep pace with evolving technologies, particularly for SDV development. However, this transition faces significant challenges: virtual design solutions are not yet widely adopted, cloud-based collaboration between OEMs and suppliers remains limited, and engineering tools cannot be developed effectively in isolation by CAD engineers alone.

For any OEM to achieve these transformational goals, change needs to be driven as far upstream as automotive engineering education, with a focus on multidisciplinary skills. Here, there is an increased sense of urgency; the further the industry advances with SDVs using the current skillsets, the more difficult and extensive the required retraining will become. Worryingly, there is currently no clear industry leader for this transition.