Report: 1 in 5 cars will be connected by 2020

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The increased consumption and creation of digital content within cars will lead to sophisticated information and entertainment systems.

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If you buy a car within the next five years, it’s likely that it will be Internet-enabled. That’s the prediction Gartner has shared, anyway. The market research firm has released its latest report that expects there to be approximately 250 million connected cars on the road by 2020, paving the way for new in-vehicle services and automated driving capabilities. In other words, one in five vehicle will boast some sort of wireless network connection.

During the next five years, the proportion of new vehicles equipped with this capability will increase dramatically, making connected cars an integral element of the rapidly-growing Internet of Things (IoT) — an area Gartner forecasts will entail 4.9 billion connected things in use this year and will reach 25 billion by 2020.

“The connected car is already a reality, and in-vehicle wireless connectivity is rapidly expanding from luxury models and premium brands, to high-volume midmarket models,” explained James F. Hines, Gartner Research Director. “The increased consumption and creation of digital content within the vehicle will drive the need for more sophisticated infotainment systems, creating opportunities for application processors, graphics accelerators, displays and human-machine interface technologies. At the same time, new concepts of mobility and vehicle usage will lead to new business models and expansion of alternatives to car ownership, especially in urban environments.”

The proliferation of vehicle connectivity will have implications across the major functional areas of telematics, automated driving, infotainment and mobility services. Driving the adoption of connected car technology is the expansion of high-bandwidth wireless network infrastructure, rising expectations for access to mobile content and better service from smartphones and tablets. While many of the major automakers have rolled out connected cars in a number of limited models, in-vehicle wireless connectivity is rapidly expanding from luxury and premium brands to high-volume mid-market versions. Take for instance, General Motors, Hyundai and Chrysler, who have each partnered with telecoms AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, respectively.

By 2018, two automakers will have announced plans to become technology companies and expand their connected-vehicle value experiences to other industries and devices, Gartner said in a report last year. And over the next five years, at least one auto company will achieve 10% of its total revenues from connected mobility and service offerings.

“The increased consumption and creation of digital content within the vehicle will drive the need for more sophisticated infotainment systems, creating opportunities for application processors, graphics accelerators, displays and human-machine interface technologies,” Hines stated.

As the amount of information being fed into in-car head unit or telematics systems grows, vehicles will be able to capture and share not only internal systems status and location data, but also changes in surroundings in real-time, Computer World writes. Ultimately, your car will become just another part of your mobile data plan.

“To facilitate that kind of shift, connected-vehicle leaders in automotive organizations need to partner with existing ecosystems like Android Auto or Apple CarPlay that can simplify access to and integration of general mobile applications into the vehicle,” Gartner Analyst Thilo Koslowski shared in last year’s report.

The Gartner report follows recent revelations from IBM, who in the company’s Automotive 2025 study found that a majority of executives believe cars will become more personalized for drivers over the next 10 years, but autonomous vehicles and self-driving cars will not yet be ubiquitous. In fact, IBM anticipates that by 2025, vehicles will be intelligent enough to configure themselves to a driver and other occupants. In other words, cars will be able to learn, heal, drive and socialize with others on the road, and their surrounding environment through vehicle-to-vehicle communication.

Without question, the demand for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) is on the rise as well. According to ABI Research analysts, the market is expected to grow from $11.1 billion last year to $91.9 billion by 2020, hitting the $200 billion mark by 2024. Fueling that growth is the expansion of the technology from high-end luxury vehicles to more affordable cars and mini automobiles. One of the most popular systems on high-end vehicles, adaptive cruise control (ACC), will continue to gain popularity across all vehicle segments, with shipments experiencing a CAGR of 69% between 2014 and 2020.

 

Report: The car of 2025 will repair and drive itself

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An IBM study says more intelligent cars will be commonplace by 2025, while self-driving cars may not.

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With the emergence of the IoT, our world is becoming increasingly more connected. Not only is it our kitchens and living rooms, but smart “things” are beginning to infiltrate our garages and roads as well. Today, it is more apparent than ever before that consumers are more engaged, meaning they will demand a more seamlessly-integrated, personalized experience inside their ride. As more cars go online, IBM points out that the lines of the automotive industry will blur and the ecosystem will expand to include electronics and telecommunications enterprises.

According to the company’s Automotive 2025 study — which was based on interviews from 175 automobile industry executives spanning 21 countries — 38% expect at least partial autonomous cars over the next 10 years that will be able to drive themselves in certain designated areas. While these cars will be far more digitally-savvy and connected than anything we have today, only 8% of the executives predicted entirely driverless automobiles. That isn’t to say they wouldn’t welcome them.

In fact, a vast majority (87%) of those surveyed claimed that they believe partially-automated driving, such as an expansion of today’s self-parking or lane change assist technologies, will enter a state of ubiquity in the coming years. Meanwhile, 55% said highly-automated driving, where the system recognizes its limitations and calls the driver to take control, if needed, allowing the driver to perform some non-driving tasks in the meantime, will also be adapted by 2025.

The study found that nearly one-fifth (19%) of the business leaders felt that their companies are fully prepared for the challenges of the next decade, while one-third (33%) believed their organizations are adaptable to facing those obstacles.

The IBM study goes onto reveal that by 2025, vehicles will be intelligent enough to configure themselves to a driver and other occupants. In other words, cars will be able to learn, heal, drive and socialize with other automobiles, and their surrounding environment through vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Indeed, nearly 80% of the execs believe these cognitive technologies will be a key component of how vehicles learn and reason to provide a better experience for the occupants and optimize their own performance. With the rise of V2V communication, next-gen cars will be equipped to monitor drivers with heart conditions for signs of heart attack or even repair itself without human intervention.

Soon, our vehicles will be able to take on their own “digital personas” and join car-to-car “social networks,” an area in which 57% of respondents felt would come to fruition over the next decade. This would enable vehicles to share not only traffic and weather conditions, but information specific to a given automaker. The study also indicated that nearly two out of every three (63%) executives saw mobility services or ride-sharing as an area for greater collaboration with consumers, while more than half (59%) cited product design, marketing campaigns (54%) and service/after-sales (52%) as areas that the industry could tremendously benefit from working directly with drivers.

Whatever the future holds, IBM encourages that “automotive enterprises must adapt to how consumers can access vehicles in new ways and use them in their digital lives — and how cars now fit into an increasingly complex web of transportation options. Looking toward 2025, those enterprises that welcome the openness transforming the business are setting the stage for success.”

While we await 2025, Reuters has recently published their latest report on The State of Innovation in the Automotive Industry 2015. According to the global news agency, GM, Toyota and Hyundai are all making a huge investment on self-driving cars. Though Google may have gotten the lion’s share of the headlines when it comes to autonomous vehicles, a number of today’s biggest carmakers are filing the most patents in this space. GM, in particular, has shown an astonishing increase in interest with the most documents published in 2013, as the chart below demonstrates.

So, what’s next for automotive market in the forthcoming years? Whether it’s sensor-laden vehicles or flying cars, a much smarter, safer and secure future is in store. Without question, today’s drivers make demanding customers for carmakers, so automotive electronics will remain a demanding application area, an area in which we know quite a bit about. Buckle up, we’re driving the Internet of Things in the fast lane! 

GM says driverless Cadillac to hit the road by 2017

Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, has recently announced that the company plans to introduce 120-miles of technology-enabled highways in and around the Motor City.

By 2017, GM is planning on deploying vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication systems as a standard in its Cadillac CTS sedan. Equipped with the company’s “Super Cruise” technology, future vehicles will be able to drive themselves, handling highway speeds of up to 70mph. GM’s semi-automated technology will keep a vehicle in a specific, properly equipped freeway lane, making necessary steering and speed adjustments in bumper-to-bumper traffic or long highway trips. However, unlike the driverless vehicle being tested by Google, GM’s system will still require drivers to remain attentive and ready to resume control of the vehicle.

Although Google’s driverless cars have been at the center of all the buzz, several automakers aren’t too far behind in the IoT fast lane. According to reports, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Nissan, Toyota and Tesla are among the latest manufactures dipping their toes into the autonomous driving waters.

In line with our previous discussions around V2V, these new GM endorsed roadways will allow cars to “talk” with one another, thereby promoting safety, reducing traffic congestion and improving fuel economy. Jon Lauckner, GM’s CTO believes, “in the not so distant future, intelligent and connected vehicle technologies could help eliminate the crash altogether.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation has also recently said it is considering adopting a rule by 2016 requiring V2V systems. V2V communications use a variation of the 802.11 wireless network standard used by laptops and mobile phones, but instead link cars, which can share position and speed information with each other 10 times per second.

“I’m convinced customers will embrace V2V and automated driving technologies for one simple reason: they are the answer to everyday problems that people want solved,” Barra said.

According to GM’s CEO, the so-called Super Cruise technology will “kick in when there’s a congestion alert on roads like California’s Santa Monica Freeway, you can let the car take over and drive hands free and feet free through the worst stop-and-go traffic around.” She adds, “If the mood strikes you on the high-speed road from Barstow, California, to Las Vegas, you can take a break from the wheel and pedals and let the car do the work. Having it done for you — that’s true luxury.”

That being said, safety remains the paramount concern when assimilating driverless vehicles onto modern roadways. “The key to all these systems is big data — the mounds of information flowing in and out of your vehicle from intelligent transportation systems, otherwise known as vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure technology,” Forbes‘ Joann Muller explains.

At this week’s Intelligent Transportation Systems World Congress in Detroit, Honda and GM unveiled systems where pedestrian smartphones would send alerts to drivers about an individual’s location. These alerts, scanned for every 10 seconds by the vehicle, could greatly improve pedestrian safety in heavily-trafficked areas.

While full vehicle autonomy may not be on the immediate horizon, there are still concrete steps being taken by major industry players to get ahead of the technology curve. With some driverless cars hitting the streets next year, this topic of discussion will only heat up.

 

Harken system helps save lives on the road

Not only will the Internet of Things change the way you live, it will also enhance the way you drive. Before the day where we’ll see driverless cars, the world will have the chance to experience just how embedded technology could drastically alter the way in which we operate vehicles, not to mention save lives along the way. Despite the emergence of wearable devices throughout the marketplace, surprisingly only a few of these devices focus on enhancing safety.

Though it may not receive as much recognition as drunk driving, drowsy driving is a worrisome behavior that puts commuters at risk. In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that tired drivers cause more than 100,000 crashes a year, leading to 40,000 injuries and 1,550 deaths.

Scientists in Valencia, Spain are developing a non-invasive system measures heartbeat and respiratory rate embedded sensors in the seat cover and the seat belt of a vehicle. Created by the Biomechanics Institute (IBV), the Heart and Respiration In-Car Embedded Non-Intrusive Sensors (Harken) system works by measuring the heart rate and respiratory pace of a driver.

When the sensor data indicates a person is dozing off, the researchers envision an alarm going off to wake the driver before control of the vehicle is lost. “The variation in heart and respiratory rate are good indicators of the state of the driver as they are related to fatigue. So when people go into a state of fatigue or drowsiness, modifications appear in their breathing and heart rate; HARKEN can monitor those variables and therefore warn the driver before the onset of symptoms of fatigue,” explained José Solaz, IBV Director of Innovation Markets in Automobile and Mass Transportation.

The two-year project ended in June with a working prototype tested on closed roads. Thanks to its short time-to-market scope, Harken will shortly allow to have vehicles in the streets in order to run tests in real traffic scenarios. “Preliminary tests have led to positive and reliable results, thus, Harken help in the near future to reduce accidents,” added Solaz.

As previously reported in Bits & Pieces, the Internet of Things and embedded technology will pave the way for new electronic functions in vehicles — many of which will help ensure road safety.

 

Report: Drivers ready for connected cars

According to a new report from mobile operator Telefónica, consumer awareness of connected car products and services around the globe is growing.

In its annual study of buying behavior and attitudes, the telco found that 70% of drivers were either interested in using, or already were using, connected car services, while 80% of consumers expected that they would ultimately be have the access to the same connected experience in their vehicle as they would in their home via a mobile device.

“Through looking at the connected car from a driver’s perspective, it’s clear that the demand for connected services in cars is unquestionable. Even though we’re just moving off of the starting line, people are ready for it and know what they want. But challenges to widespread roll-out remain,” explained Pavan Mathew, Global Head of Connected Car at Telefónica.

In fact, around half of consumers now consider connected features, such as built-in connectivity and the ability to plug-in a smartphone, a key part of their next car purchase. Other features, including increased safety, early warning systems and smarter navigation, are cited as the most popular with nearly three-quarters (73%) of drivers listing safety and diagnostics components as the most important.

“I also think vehicle-to-vehicle communication is going to grow very quickly in the next five years. The beauty of that technology is that the communication protocol can be used for a host of other services beyond vehicle communication, so it benefits the wider infrastructure too,” said Kia Motors CTO Henry Bzeih.

Other key findings from the report include:

• Usage-based insurance models are also very popular, with 54% of UK drivers choosing it one of the connected car features they would be most interested in.
• On average 35% of drivers expect not to own their own car by 2034, and instead predict they will be using alternative options such as car sharing services.
• The dashboard is the favored way for accessing connected services, particularly for safety, navigation and vehicle diagnostics, with more than 60% of respondents across all markets preferring to access features in this way.
• Drivers in various countries will prefer to pay for connected services in different ways. Most Spanish drivers would prefer a one-off payment (49%) while those in America, Germany and the UK would favour basic connectivity with the option to choose additional services. Brazilians are split between the latter and a full-on PAYG model, suggesting a degree of flexibility not seen in other countries.

GM Director of Product Strategy and Infotainment Greg Ross explained, “For us it comes down to the things that make the car a better vehicle. When we talk to customers about connectivity they say well it’s a car and so what I need it to do are the things I bought a car for. They want it to be safer, more intelligent and more economical. Connectivity is a chance for OEMs to look at how we can help to reduce costs for customers and make cost of ownership lower by giving advice on how to drive more fuel efficiently, or helping you find the lowest cost source of fuel or the most efficient route.”

Additionally, another report from Infonetics Research has revealed that in the connected car market is expected to rise to nearly $8 billion in 2015 and reach $16.9 billion come 2018. This an increase from 2013, where the market valued at close to $6 billion. The firm states that some service providers are seeing as much as 90% of their M2M revenue generated from the connected car segment. According to the study, North America is the foundation of the global connected car business, accounting for 37% of global service revenue in 2013; Europe and Asia will be fast-growing regions. With sizeable auto markets and large land areas, countries like the U.S. and China are ideal for connected vehicle services.

As previously discussed in Bits & Pieces, automotive electronics are currently centered around people (infotainment and communications) and the machine itself (to run the car and provide safety and convenience). However, a third element is emerging; namely, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications.

You can read the entire “Connected Car Industry Report“ here.