His doctorate on the rolling pneumatic tire is timeless. Today, the work might concern e-mobility; Ernst Fiala looked at the aspect of lateral guidance forces in 1954.
Born in Vienna, he started his professional career at Daimler-Benz. Until 1963, he was a test and development engineer, most recently for the area of passenger car bodies. In 1963 he went to the Institute for Motor Vehicles at the Technical University of Berlin, where he headed the technical testing center for motor vehicles. Fiala then took over the central research division in the Volkswagen Group. In 1973, he was appointed to the VW Board of Management. His tenure included the introduction of the VW Golf, the development of the three-way catalytic converter and the introduction of the track-stabilizing negative steering roll radius.
Ernst Fiala has published a large number of technical papers and has been granted more than 100 patents. He holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Heidelberg and Kragujevac. He has been awarded the Golden Decoration of Honor of the Republic of Austria and the Béla Barényi Prize of the AMV.