DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2024.20
title: An investigation into increasing automotive industry innovation and market opportunities through developing bio-friendly next-generation vehicles

description: In today's world, there are approximately 1.446 billion light-duty vehicles on the roads. By 2050, this number is expected to rise to around 2.98 billion. The majority of these vehicles will be smart. Light-duty vehicles are presently substantial contributors to global climate change, owing to greenhouse gas and PM2.5 emissions generated throughout their manufacturing, operation, and end-of-life stages. They also emit electromagnetic pollution during use and are far less bio-friendly than they could be. The automotive industry must rapidly address such challenges, especially since the number of light-duty vehicles is predicted to nearly double by 2050, and the International Panel on Climate Change has warned that many of climate change's effects are now irreversible. The fact that health, environmental, and sustainability concerns are increasingly influencing the purchasing decisions of many customers also needs to be taken into consideration by the automotive industry when planning its way forward. A further factor to be taken into consideration is that the industry can do far more to increase its bio-friendliness in order to help it better penetrate the lucrative wellness industry which is expected to be worth almost $7.0 trillion by 2025. This study aims to understand the obstacles, challenges, and opportunities that the Thai automotive industry must face to increase its worldwide competitiveness and resilience, and suggest effective solutions, initiatives, and best practices to enable it to do so through creating greener and smarter bio-friendly vehicles. An in-depth literature review was undertaken to provide a deeper understanding of this subject area. Topics that were investigated include the prevailing situation within the automotive industry, why some parts of it may need to be changed, and what benefits could arise from such transformation. Innovative technologies and conceptual approaches that may be worth implementing were investigated in depth alongside the opportunities and risks that need to be addressed and the potential benefits of doing so. Industry perspectives and consumer opinions were also covered as part of this review. The research methodology developed for this work has been specifically created to help investigating and developing measures that can be used to create a smarter, more sustainable, more bio-friendly automotive industry in Thailand. It examines in the green potential and bio-friendliness of current and possible initiatives and proposes ways to improve them to increase industry sustainability and better meet future customer needs. The main findings of the research conducted on this topic indicate the factors that automotive professionals and members of the general public, representative of drivers and potential drivers, consider to be essential for the future development of bio-friendly next-generation vehicles and for making drivers safer and more convenient in terms of health and well-being. This research shows that there is much that can be done to make next-generation vehicles greener and more bio-friendly and indicates that both the general public and automobile industry experts are strongly in favour of such measures being taken. Its quantitative research additionally shows that many people are prepared to pay markedly more for cars that are more bio-friendly, and that they wish vehicles to be less polluting in general, including creating lower levels of electromagnetic pollution. Such findings can help determine the direction the motor industry should take.