Automotive know-how for new industries: Too good to be true?

Few industries in the world demand the same level of precision, scale, and resilience as automotive. Building a car means managing tens of thousands of components, ultra-lean margins, complex global supply chains, and life-critical safety systems – all under brutal time-to-market pressure. Now, imagine if that know-how – developed and fine-tuned over decades – could be unleashed for the benefit of other industries.

As traditional automotive players face transformation fatigue and margin compression, a new avenue of opportunity presents itself: applying their engineering DNA to sectors with different economics and new frontiers, like defense, aerospace, industrial tech, energy, and even healthcare.

From road to runway: How automotive engineers could thrive in aerospace and defense
The idea that automotive players could stroll smoothly into defense or aerospace is often met with skepticism. Rightly so. These industries operate under different rhythms and regulations: low volumes, extreme reliability, long certification cycles, and so on. But are those differences truly prohibitive as barriers to entry? Absolutely not. Instead, I’d consider them to be a healthy mandate for automotive companies to adapt their capabilities for a broader range of use cases and seize the opportunity to contribute to industries that will experience significant pressure to ramp up their capabilities in the coming years.

Here are just some of the valuable automotive attributes that could be significant assets to other industries.

– MBSE & Systems Engineering: The transition to software-defined vehicles has resulted in a generation of engineers fluent in Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) – a skillset that is now vital to A&D development programs.
– Industrial Scale & Cost Innovation: The modular architectures and cost discipline that enable automotive companies to turn a profit would be incredibly useful to a defense sector reliant on orders funded by taxpayer money.
– Validation & Test Automation: Automotive companies have an almost-religious commitment to testing, and the need to stick to strict budgets has driven them to innovate and excel at testing efficiency. This mindset and the accompanying toolchains are now being applied to accelerate qualification cycles for avionic control software and mission-critical embedded systems.

Opening the factory gates: When auto meets industrial tech
Of course, there are other industries that have undergone – or are undergoing – the same technology transformation as automotive, and they could benefit from the collective experience of the automotive industry. With vehicles having evolved from mechanical devices to distributed systems on wheels, this new architecture – built for interoperability, robustness, and real-time control – is now highly relevant in smart factory environments and industrial automation. The technology and skills transfer is already underway:

– Edge AI and Embedded Systems: Automotive-grade embedded software expertise is helping modernize industrial robots, autonomous forklifts, and machine vision systems – with real-time responsiveness and safety logic drawn directly from vehicle automation platforms.
– Digital Twins and Virtual Commissioning: The automotive sector has made simulation-first development mainstream. Today, Capgemini teams are transferring those digital twin models to optimize predictive maintenance in industrial plants and dynamic process tuning in semiconductor fabs.

Energy and infrastructure: All roads lead to the grid
The ongoing transition to electric mobility has demanded the acquisition and development of new skills by automotive companies. Many OEMs and Tier-1s have quietly become masters of power electronics, thermal management, and energy systems integration – skills that are increasingly valued in new domains.

– Grid-edge Innovation: Automotive-derived battery management systems and inverter designs are being adapted for stationary storage, solar inverters, and smart grid nodes.
– Hydrogen Ecosystems: Automotive fuel-cell R&D, especially in commercial vehicle programs, is now feeding into industrial hydrogen applications.

Healthcare and MedTech: Engineering trust at scale
Medical device OEMs are under pressure to deliver faster innovation with guaranteed safety. Automotive engineers – accustomed to working in ISO 26262 environments – bring a rigor that’s naturally aligned with the ISO 13485 standard that applies to medical systems.

– Connected Health: Vehicle telematics architectures are strong candidates for translation into remote monitoring for dialysis machines. Capgemini has already pioneered projects for this use case, using edge-based diagnostics and OTA updates.
– Mechanical-electronic Integration: The automotive mastery of mechatronics integration – think ADAS sensors and actuators – is now helping in the miniaturization of surgical robotics and drug delivery devices.

From pilots to platforms: What can other sectors learn from automotive?
Too many industries remain trapped in »innovation theatre«. We see small-scale pilots with no path to scale. Automotive, out of necessity, has evolved into a master of industrialization under pressure. Other industries – such as defense – are now eyeing these scaling capabilities as they prepare for the »Zeitenwende«.

– Platform Thinking: From Volkswagen’s MQB to Hyundai’s E-GMP, automotive proves that product families built on shared platforms are key to cost efficiency and faster time to market. It’s a lesson waiting to be applied in everything from drones to diagnostic imaging.
– End-to-End Validation Chains: Automotive programs routinely synchronize hardware, software, and testing in real time across global teams. This is an invaluable blueprint for regulated industries that must now integrate more software into complex systems.

Success not guaranteed: Focus on translation, not transplantation
The strategy of »breaking out« from automotive into other industries is not guaranteed to succeed. For every story of cross-industry breakthrough, there are just as many where bold ambitions have collided with complex realities and, ultimately, met with failure.

At Capgemini, we have the benefit and responsibility of working across eight deeply technical industries, from semiconductors to rail, and energy to healthcare. That vantage point has taught us a simple truth:

Technologies and operating models don’t copy well. But they can be translated.

Take the idea of platform modularity, which has been so successful in automotive. In aerospace, it often runs into regulatory ceilings. In medical tech, into clinical validation cycles. And in defense, into mission-specific customization. Yet, if interpreted with nuance, its principles – reuse, standardize, design-for-scalability – can still unlock significant value.

The value of engaging with an industry translator
Similarly, agile engineering thrives in automotive product software. But when applied blindly to industrial control systems or critical energy platforms, it can introduce risk. Adaptation rather than replication is key. This is where Capgemini plays a crucial role – not just as a consultant or a vendor, but as a cultural and technological interpreter. We help clients recognize where automotive excellence fits, and where it must flex.

It’s not enough to bring automotive talent and tools into new sectors. We must support them with translation layers that reflect an understanding of industry-specific constraints, stakeholder dynamics, regulatory environments, and operating tempos.

The key to success is not about seeking out pre-packaged blueprints. Instead, we look to co-engineer context-aware strategies that respect the unique characteristics of a specific sector and augment them with the proven strengths of automotive DNA.

A prosperous future should not be taken for granted. We know that what worked yesterday won’t work tomorrow. Nevertheless, a positive future awaits those willing to boldly engineer new innovations outside their lane and build beyond their core.