General Motors has rightly been critized for being behind its foreign competitors on a variety of automotive advances and trends over the past few decades; but if you watch this video which discusses how GM is employing “smart materials,” I think you’ll agree that the company has jumped the curve.
The benefits of these shape memory alloys are vast and the potential for GM to use them to gain a competitive advantage is extraordinary. For starters, smart materials can be used to produce fenders and side panels that bend back into shape after accidents. The materials can also replace a number of actuators throughout the car of the future.
Because these materials will also replace some electric motors, they might help reduce the overall weight of the car and lead to increase in fuel efficiency. Moreover, the new materials will have the benefit of making more space available inside the car (because they won’t take up as much room as an electric motor). Creative engineers should be able to make use of this additional space to deploy new features.
The significance of this advance, of course, goes well beyond the automotive industry. These advances will impact any industry that relies on plastic, steel, fiberglass or aluminum. For example, just imagine the new toys can be created if little Johnny no longer has to worry about crashing his toy tank or airplane; or imagine how architects and home and kitchen designers can rethink room layout with such materials? (In my own case, I know I’d have a lot more room in my kitchen if some of the motors in my refrigerator could be replaced and the frig could be made thinner.)
The take-a-way is this: New, smart, shape-shifting materials are no longer the stuff of science fiction—they are here today. If you want to be in business tomorrow it would behoove you o set your engineers and creative designers to work on figuring out ways to use these matierals to lower costs; increase fuinctionality; and, most importantly, create innovative new applications.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
