Many benchmarking approaches stop at comparing specifications. FEV Consulting combines real-hardware analysis, performance data, engineering interpretation, cost transparency, interdisciplinary workshops, and the carat database. This allows clients not only to understand competitors, but to translate evidence into product targets, architecture choices, and cost decisions.

Benchmarking is most valuable in early decision phases, when defining product concepts, setting performance and cost targets, or evaluating new business opportunities. It provides a fact-based foundation before major investments are made and is equally relevant for portfolio decisions, design-to-cost optimization, and industrialization planning. Typical applications include:

• A new vehicle program starts and target values for cost, weight, performance, or package space need to be defined
• Development teams need to choose between competing technical concepts before design freeze
• Products in production are reviewed for cost reduction and value engineering opportunities
• A product has been on the market for several years and needs to be reassessed against newer competitor solutions
• A company is evaluating entry into a new technology field or market segment and needs to identify attractive applications and positions in the value chain

Benchmarking is sometimes perceived as backward-looking, but real products provide the most reliable evidence of what is technically feasible, commercially available, and competitive today. FEV Consulting does not replicate existing solutions. It reveals the design principles, cost drivers, performance trade-offs, and technology choices behind them so that clients can define future targets based on evidence rather than assumptions. In one project, FEV Consulting benchmarked an early battery concept against more than 30 high-voltage battery packs and used the results to define performance and cost targets before the final product design was established.

FEV Consulting covers performance, design, and cost analysis at vehicle, system, and component level. Depending on the scope, deliverables include KPI comparisons and scatterbands, teardown and architecture analyses, costed BOMs, cost-driver assessments, and interdisciplinary workshops using real hardware.

The carat database is FEV Consulting’s centralized benchmarking intelligence platform, providing structured access to design, performance, and cost data across hundreds of benchmarked products. It enables consistent KPI-based comparison, supports target definition, and allows teams to reuse insights across projects, transforming benchmarking from one-time analysis into a scalable decision platform.

FEV Consulting accelerates decision-making by providing immediate access to proven market references instead of relying on assumptions. Our clients can quickly compare alternative concepts, define realistic targets, and understand cost and performance trade-offs based on existing competitor solutions.

This helps align engineering, purchasing, and strategy teams earlier, enabling faster concept selection and target definition.

AI supports benchmarking by accelerating data analysis, identifying patterns across large datasets, and enabling faster comparison of design, performance, and cost metrics. At FEV Consulting, AI is applied on structured benchmarking data in the carat database, allowing users not only to analyze data efficiently but also to interact with it – for example by querying, exploring, and “chatting” with benchmarking datasets to retrieve relevant insights.

However, AI does not replace expert interpretation. The value of FEV Consulting’s Benchmarking lies in combining data-driven insights with engineering expertise and consulting-driven evaluation, ensuring that our results provide a clear basis for product, cost, and strategic decisions.

Benchmarking is delivered through both client-exclusive projects and shared benchmarking programs or subscription models, depending on the use case. While our exclusive projects enable tailored analysis for specific products or strategies, shared programs provide access to FEV Consulting’s extensive benchmark datasets across multiple products and technologies at an attractive price.

This approach allows our clients to combine customized insights with large-scale benchmark data, ensuring both high decision relevance and cost-efficient access to benchmarking intelligence.