Manufacturing plays a crucial role for those looking to launch an autonomous vehicle. While software may be the driving force behind this technology, the hardware components of the vehicle are what make its use possible. However, the production of AVs is not a simple task. With challenges like base vehicle assembly, upfits, and retrofits, it can be difficult to execute production effectively. That's where Edison Manufacturing and Engineering comes in.
We've gained immense experience in this field, and we're excited to share our knowledge with you. Join us on a journey to learn the "7 Tips to Reliably Scale Autonomous Vehicle Production" through our series of videos, beginning with Brandon explaining the vision for our series.
Key Takeaways:
- Effective manufacturing and production is critical for a company looking to scale in the autonomous vehicle space.
- Autonomous applications include last-mile delivery, middle-mile logistics, long haul trucks, forklifts, warehouse robotics, yard trucks, shuttles, mining, construction, agriculture, sidewalk robotics, and more.
- It takes intentional work to make the leap from proof of concept to low-volume production, and Edison exists to help you do it effectively and sustainably.
Full Transcript:
Welcome to the Capital Light Assembly podcast brought to you by Edison Manufacturing and Engineering. Edison is your contract manufacturing partner focused on the capital-efficient assembly of mobility and mobility-adjacent products that are not well-suited for highly automated production. I'm Brandon Bartneck, vice president and general manager here at Edison. We’re kicking off a special series here. So, over the next, I guess, this episode and then seven subsequent episodes, we're talking about a specific topic and going into a bit of detail. And these will be a bit shorter form than some of the past episodes.
We’ll be talking about specific tips to reliably scale autonomous vehicle production. Autonomous vehicles have a wide range, from sidewalk robotics, warehouse robotics, last-mile delivery, middle mile logistics, long haul on highway class 8 trucks, yard trucks, we're talking about shuttles, we're talking about agriculture construction, port automation, there’s a wide range of robotics and autonomy applications. Several of these are in a similar space right now. The technology is being proven and finalized. You have safety cases that are being validated, and on-road pilots are taking place. Now, the next steps are taking place. You have a prototype, proof of concept, and are trying to scale that into legitimate, whether it's into beta builds and then pre-production and then low volume, true production. And that doesn't come easily. That requires intentional work to not become one of the companies that fail to make this leap. So that's what we're going to be talking about here. The next episodes will be dedicated to the topic of how you reliably scale autonomous vehicle production. This is just the intro here. Take a listen to the next one. We'll get into the first tip.
Make sure to follow along with this series as we answer some of the following questions:
- How can autonomous vehicles be built at scale?
- How can AV companies bring their hardware products to the market?
- How can common manufacturing mistakes be avoided?
- How does automotive know-how and experience apply in the AV space?
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