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This paper intends to study the feasibility about to use photovoltaic components in a car for energizing the compressor of an automotive air conditioning system. For this, we compared the performance of two different photovoltaic components used for this purpose: photovoltaic modules applied in a rigid substrates and thin film, applied in a flexible substrates. The study motivation are, while the photovoltaic air-conditioning is operating, to fuel saving, to increase the vehicle performance, to improve the greenhouse levels of gas emissions and to propose a new option of product, which is not available in the Brazilian market at this moment. The evaluations showed that the most viable proposal is to use thin film instead of photovoltaic modules.

A frequent situation in the national automobile industry is the each time bigger rapidity that just-launched models are evolved (the so called face-lifts). Within this highly dynamic context, the solutions and technical proposals developed by the local product engineering have two main guidelines. The first one is to work on product evolutions which goal is to make the vehicles far more attractive and differentiated with respect to the competition and also to the previous model. The second one is to constantly search the standardization or the modularization of parts between the different models and versions of vehicles, thus reducing the costs of investments and providing scale profits.

A really important characteristic of the OEM's (Original Equipment Manufacturer) that arrived in Brazil during the last decade is that all of them launched vehicles models that were conceived, designed and developed abroad, normally in the Company Headquarters. The first effect of this tendency affects certain technical specifications such as raw materials or even those components that were not validated for the local market conditions. The majority of the technical specifications are over dimensioned in relation to current local regulations in the Brazilian Country. According to Pascoal (2007), another effect is that these vehicles have an end of the product life cycles sooner than the Brazilian branch offices. This condition implies that even after the end of production of these vehicles in the European factories, these models will continue in the production line at the Brazilian Factories for several years (in some cases).

In recent years, the perception and use of the car has evolved greatly in response to a growing need for mobility of different customers. Currently, a significant number of drivers spend more and more time inside their vehicles, and due to this fact, the interior of cars has become a new living space in which the human-machine interface (HMI) is becoming increasingly important. Thus, the HMI embedded in vehicles is a response to users' needs by offering among other features, the control commands of the vehicles, systems to aid the driver and multimedia services. The major automakers, attentive to this trend, have been releasing new models of vehicles on which the HMI has its place of prominence. This work mainly aims to present some examples of recent innovations in HMI and also draw a survey of the horizons and boundaries of HMI in the future.

The advancement of technology leads the auto industry to develop new products and increasingly with greater speed and quality assured to meet the needs of the consumer market, ensuring the competitiveness of automakers. The reduction of costs and time for the development of new products are highly desired items and the phase of validation/testing is an important step in this process to ensure compliance and quality of the product since its launch. Among the various activities that integrate the process of developing a new vehicle, the management of validation tests has become increasingly strategic to the automaker, contributing to realization of the tests with the least number of prototypes or pre-series vehicles, optimizing in this way, the costs and available resources. This article aims to present, in general, the competencies of Brazilian's experimental engineering PSA Peugeot Citroën in the management of validation tests for a new project vehicle for Mercosur.