02Research & Development

  • Design-led
  • Technology-open

Designing the vehicle is only one part of designing the future around it.

Research at Azeria means asking what should be designed next — and using design to test the answer.

The premise

Everything is changing at once.

  • 01Vehicle architecture
  • 02Artificial intelligence
  • 03Manufacturing
  • 04Software
  • 05Personalisation
  • 06Supply chains

The automotive industry is changing because these are changing simultaneously. Azeria investigates how those changes affect what should be designed next.

Where Azeria works — at the intersection
  1. Design
  2. Technology
  3. Manufacturing
  4. User behaviour
  5. Business models

What R&D means at Azeria.

What we do

  • Research and strategic studies
  • Technology scouting
  • Concept development and system thinking
  • Design application
  • Integration and demonstrators

The question we bring

What becomes possible when this technology is treated as a design input?

Areas of work

Areas of work

Areas of research and exploration.

01

Technology scouting

Identifying technologies capable of creating new products — or entirely new vehicle architectures.

What becomes possible when this technology is treated as a design input?

Examples

  • New propulsion architectures
  • Advanced battery technologies
  • In-wheel motors
  • Lightweight materials and composites
  • Additive and digital manufacturing
  • Robotics
  • AI and sensor systems
  • New interface technologies
02

Mobility architecture

Technology changes proportion.

When a component moves, space is freed or claimed — and the shape of the vehicle, and sometimes its category, follows.

How an architecture change travels through a vehicle
  1. Component
  2. Space
  3. Proportion
  4. Cabin & access
  5. Category

Examples

  • Proportions and wheelbase
  • Cabin architecture
  • Packaging and storage
  • Accessibility and modularity
  • Vehicle categories and ownership models
03

AI + design workflows

AI doesn’t replace designers. It increases the number of directions a design team can investigate — and designers still decide which one is right.

Examples

  • Accelerated ideation
  • Generative design workflows
  • Visual concept development
  • Customer preference analysis
  • Configuration systems
  • Collaborative design environments
04

Customer co-creation

Active research

A future where customers take part in creating the product, not only in choosing its options.

What changes when the customer becomes part of the design process?

Examples

  • Digitally configured vehicles
  • Customer-to-manufacturer workflows
  • AI-assisted personalisation
  • Limited-production customisation
  • Design platforms
  • Personalised interiors, trims and components
05

Flexible manufacturing

How new manufacturing systems change what designers and brands are able to create.

Examples

  • Low-volume and modular production
  • Additive manufacturing
  • Digital tooling
  • Distributed manufacturing
  • Rapid prototyping
06

Platform + ecosystem studies

The vehicle is becoming a platform.

Instead of reinventing every engineering component, a new vehicle company may differentiate on what customers actually experience — while using validated technology from specialist partners.

Differentiation layer

  • Design
  • Experience
  • Brand
  • Software
  • Configuration
  • Materials
  • Specialisation

Validated base

Architectures, platforms and components from specialist partners

A platform study.

Research areas

  • Modular and standardised architectures
  • Third-party technology platforms
  • Shared vehicle architectures
  • Component ecosystems and supplier integration
  • Platform-based vehicle programmes
07

Technology integration

From component to product.

We help companies understand how a technology should become a compelling product — especially suppliers and technology companies whose innovation sits inside someone else’s vehicle.

What a technology can open up
  1. Technology
  2. Architecture
  3. Design opportunity
  4. Experience
  5. Product

For

  • Technology and Tier-1 suppliers
  • OEMs
  • New vehicle start-ups
  • Manufacturing companies
  • Investors exploring mobility technology
08

Concept demonstrators

Showing what a technology enables.

Visual and design demonstrators for companies with strong engineering and a product story still to tell.

Examples

  • Concept vehicle
  • Digital prototype
  • Packaging demonstrator
  • User-experience concept
  • Investor demonstrator
  • Technology showcase

09 — Research studies

Azeria Research

Studies we are preparing. Selected titles are in development and will be published as Azeria research papers.

  1. 01 Future Luxury Mobility Planned
  2. 02 AI + Automotive Design In development
  3. 03 The Personalised Vehicle In development
  4. 04 Low-Volume Manufacturing Planned
  5. 05 Future Vehicle Architecture Planned
  6. 06 Human / Machine Interaction Planned
  7. 07 The Return of Physical Controls In development
  8. 08 Post-SUV Vehicle Typologies Planned
  9. 09 Automotive Craft in a Digital Industry Planned
  10. 10 New Models of Vehicle Creation Planned

Built around the project.

Azeria leads the vision and integrates the expertise required to realise it — technology partners, engineering specialists and production expertise, assembled around each programme with one coherent direction.

An Azeria-originated programme · Turin

Coming soon

PROJECT CONSTANTINE

Azeria’s first original automotive programme. Our own question, not a client brief: what should an emotional automobile become in an industry increasingly defined by software, automation and standardisation?

Currently in development. The first chapter will be revealed soon.

Project Constantine is separate from our client work, including Evangelum.

Have a technology? Let’s find the product in it.