Catalogo Experimenta 06

INDEX SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
140
and agricultural vehicles, for example, request an increasingly
similar performance, if not superior, to that of the car that
they use each day. .
In this market context it is fundamental to either continue
to improve the already existing functions of products, or to
bring the user closer to the new technologies and new services.
The companies of success in this field are distinguished
by a rooted and pervasive culture “of the user at the centre of
the project”, which is translated into knowing how to produce
projects capable of making themselves immediately familiar
and pleasurable, at the same time providing always more valuable
and articulated functions..
Ergonomics is the discipline which helps to develop and promote
this culture in the product. The success of the product
always increasingly depends on its capacity to guarantee and
communicate positive quality to the user such as usefulness,
pleasure, the facility of use and of new more valuable and
technologically advanced functions. Ergonomics has therefore
developed knowledge, methods, and instruments that has
transformed into a rigorous scientific discipline capable of
defining, measuring, developing and communicating quality
of use between the product and the user.
This evolution was guided by the social and technological
changes that have made the complexity of products and the
expectations of the market grow. The means of transport and
in particular the car are an example: half way through the
last century the expectations and the replies were simple and
were governed directly by the engineers; we think of products
the fruit of the genius of excellent designers like the 500 of
Dante Giacosa or the Vespa of Corradino D’Ascanio.
In the following decade, in which pleasure emerged as the
primary reason for buying, ergonomics is delegated mainly
to designers, in the field of functionality still relatively simple.
Today the car adopts ever more new technologies which
dialogue in an articulate manner with the user, to respond to
the growing expectations of the quality of mobility and to
guarantee more safety in driving.
The task of ergonomics as a discipline at the service of the
project with its capacity and expectations, is to respond to
the needs with always more coherent solutions for the user.
It is therefore specialised in physical and cognitive ergonomics;
in addition, utilises new sophisticated instruments
of virtual reality until the initial phase of the development
process of a product.
The Fiat Research Centre is committed to reinforce and spread
the culture of the design centred on the user, in the products of
today, in technological innovation and the work environment.
IMPACT ON THE AUTO SECTOR BY THE COMMUNITY
DIRECTIVE ON THE END OF THE LIFE OF CARS
The reduction of the impact on the environment of the activities
of man has become one of the primary objectives of
our society. This objective must be pursued not only through
the reduction of emissions and rubbish, but also and above
all through a more prudent and efficient management of
the resources.
The car and vehicles in general, are one of the causes, even if
not the only one, of pollution and exploitation of resources.
The vehicle industry has already done a lot and is proposing to
do a lot: in the last twenty years emissions have been reduced
more than ten times and will arrive at emissions near zero in
the next years thanks to the diffusion of methane vehicles
and the development of new motors. Unfortunately we will
have to wait longer for hydrogen vehicles.
Now, however, there is a big new objective: dealing with vehicles
at the end of their life (the so-called End of Life Vehicles,
ELV) with forcible limits for recycling, re-use and energy recovery,
not only for the vehicles of the future, but also for those
already in circulation. This is what the directive 2000/53/CE
issued by the European Union on 18th September 2000. Like