Much has been written about the transformation of the automotive industry, with terms such as 'software-driven' and 'electric mobility' frequently used. One keyword rarely mentioned in this context though is the chassis. Yet the new drives and electronics architectures, the ever better assistants and consistently higher level of automation will help shape the chassis for the next generation of vehicles. "Everything comes together in the chassis," says Christoph Elbers, Vice President Car Chassis Technology at ZF. "It's here, thanks to smart actuators such as brakes, steering or damping, that the vehicle's intelligence is put down onto the road. And an electric drive is much easier to network with the chassis than it was in the internal combustion engine days."

The choice has repercussions for chassis development. On the one hand, if you can control how brakes, steering, shock absorbers and other similar components interact and regulate them using software, you can determine how a vehicle handles far better than with individual hardware components. Designers can take safety and driving dynamics to a whole new level in this way. The same chassis will support sporty driving with direct feedback from the driver's steering input. With the autopilot on, it also allows you to decouple occupants from road bumps and undesirable body movements for a comfortable ride. Coordinated actuation of all systems is becoming vastly more important. "The Chassis of the Future is Code" was how ZF described this process a few years ago. ZF took this as the starting point for its cubiX chassis control algorithm, one of the first pure software products that it offers on the market today. There are also new electronics architectures that enable interaction with a software-driven architecture via host computers and functionally defined domain controllers. Service-oriented architectures that support updates of new advanced driver assistance systems through to automated driving functions underpin this development.

Alternative chassis concepts are now also possible. All systems that make up a software-defined vehicle can be combined in a separate substructure. Various vehicle bodies can then be bolted onto this "mobile chassis platform" consisting of high-performance controllers, Continuous Damping Control, brake systems, steering systems and an electric drive. This setup is known as the skateboard design. At first sight, it looks like a throwback to the body-on-frame architecture from automotive development in the past. In fact, it is the future. It offers a compelling solution for light commercial vehicles used as distribution vehicles in logistics or as small MPVs – autonomous vehicles in any event.