Advancing Automotive Design With Innovative Collaboration

The automotive industry has faced hardships in recent times, but it can and will survive by renewing itself through innovation. After enduring a $14.6 billion loss in 2008, Ford reported a $2.7 billion profit in 2009 and applied for a total of 119 patents for the 2010 Ford Fusion and Fusion Hybrid. Clearly, now more than ever, inventive thinking is key to any automaker’s success. In the process, automotive engineers have not gone it alone — collaborations with various scientific disciplines continue to inspire and reinvent the design of safer and more efficient vehicles.