NASCAR Meets BMW in 3D Design World

When BMW is not launching high-performance cars, it's working on a futuristic program called Project i, which will produce a small battery-powered urban electric vehicle (EV) for use in "mega-cities" (those with populations of more than 10 million).

And to help design it, the German automaker has tapped Paris-based Dassault Systèmes. According to Dassault, its CATIA 3D auto design software helped create 80 percent of the cars on display at last year's Los Angeles Auto Show, including the 2010 Green Car of the Year (the Audi A3 TDI, a clean diesel that gets an estimated 42 miles per gallon).

BMW signed a five-year agreement with Dassault on March 9. The software will allow BMW engineers to simulate how low-emission vehicles will perform and measure such metrics as fuel economy and grams per kilometer of carbon emissions. It could also be useful in determining the all-important range of battery vehicles.

3D design software is a big time-saver. Richard Petty Motorsports says it can quickly adapt to changing NASCAR rules with simulations that maximize performance and cut cycle times in half.

For years, the default auto design program has been Autodesk's AutoCAD; the CATIA 3D software represents serious competition. "AutoCAD is a very good tool that is great for architectural design, but with our auto clients we are addressing a much more advanced market from a technological point of view," says Jonathan Dutton, Dassault's automotive marketing development manager. "It not only allows you to draw in 3D on a two-dimensional sheet of paper, but it also simulates how the part you're designing will perform in the real world. With a seat, for instance, you can apply loads and determine if it would collapse with a heavy person sitting on it."

The venerable AutoCAD has 3D capability also. Toyota Assembly Services in Malaysia says it uses the same company's Autodesk Inventor software to test quality in building jigs and fixtures for car plants. The company is working with Tesla Motors on auto design, and with EnerDel on its next-generation of lithium-ion batteries.

"We have many customers using Inventor," says Autodesk spokesman Ed Martin. "And practically every automaker in the world develops concept designs in Alias."

Autodesk has strengths in exterior design, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. But along with Siemens PLM Software, "Dessault is the big-time player," Cole said, "and that kind of software is one reason it takes two years to develop a new car today instead of five years."

Green cars are new designs built from the ground up. South African automaker, Optimal Energy is working on Africa's first battery EV, the Joule, which is headed for the market in 2012. According to Anton Greeff, Optimal's chief mechanical engineer, the company's designers are in several locations, and the Dassault software allows them to collaborate on the same model in real time. "Everything is on the same platform and interconnected," he said.

Another use for the software is determining how modifying one part will affect others. "It does all the designing, simulating and testing before you start cutting metal--which is very expensive," Dutton said. "Carmakers use it a lot to create the drawings for final-assembly process jobs, which detail how parts are put together."

Dassault is definitely an industry leader, with clients including the Detroit Three, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, PSA (Peugeot and Citroën), Honda, Toyota, Hyundai/Kia, and Volvo.