Today, the 23rd Stuttgart International Symposium started into the second day. In addition to the interesting technical presentations and exciting discussions, there were again many highlights in the program.
The first highlight was the keynote at 10:30 a.m. by Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, Head of the Department of Complete Vehicle Architecture & Properties at Porsche AG. Frank-Steffen Walliser spoke on the topic of "E-Mobility and E-Fuels - Pioneering Spirit for Sustainable Mobility and outlined Porsche's holistic approach to decarbonization. This includes both electrification and e-fuels and requires the decarbonization of the entire supply chain. However, according to Walliser, a European framework in the form of regulatory measures is also needed to support this approach.
This was immediately followed by the panel discussion on the topic of "The Automotive Industry as a Sustainable Mobility Provider", moderated by Johannes Winterhagen. The top-class participants
- Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, Vice President Complete Vehicle Architecture and Characteristics, Porsche AG
- Prof. Markus Friedrich - Chair of Transport Planning and Traffic Engineering, Institute of Road and Transportation SCience (ISV), University of Stuttgart
- Dr. Otmar Scharrer - Senior Vice President R&D E-Mobility, ZF Group
- Raf Schuermans - Technical Senior Manager - Advanced Powertrain, Toyota Motor Europe
highlighted and discussed from different perspectives the various possibilities for the sustainable design of mobility by the automotive industry. Accordingly, decisive factors such as a standardization of technologies, the role of hydrogen, digitalization, the requirements by the market as well as the factor "emotions" should be considered in this process.
At 1 p.m., the third keynote of the symposium, entitled "Automotive Industry of China - Risk or Chance for the German Industry?" followed. In his deliberately provocative presentation, Fred Schulze, plant manager of the Audi site Neckarsulm, shed light on China's success factors that have led to the country's rapid economic upswing in recent years. Using the example of various Chinese vehicles that will soon be launched on the German and European markets, Mr. Schulze demonstrated the high level of quality, innovation, automatization and digitalization with which these products are equipped. Nevertheless, according to Mr. Schulze, China should not be seen as a threat, but rather as a challenge, if Germany were to align itself accordingly through openness to technology, customer focus and with clear policy guidelines. A lively question and answer session followed the presentation.
In addition, today's event also included two further poster sessions on the topics of "Mobility Solutions" and "Smart Engineering", a guided tour of the exhibition, which gave participants the opportunity to get to know the exhibitors at the accompanying trade show in more detail.
After two exciting days, the 23rd Stuttgart International Symposium has thus come to an end. About 500 registered participants attended 90 lectures and were able to make valuable contacts during the supporting program. For the first time in the history of the symposium, approximately one-third of the manuscripts for SAE presentations had been peer-reviewed.
We thank all speakers and participants for making it such a dynamic event!