Thatcham Research’s Vehicle Technology Manager, Tom Leggett considered how autonomous, connected and electric vehicles (ACE) will impact the market in the coming years in his session, A glimpse into the future, which took place at ARC360’s recent Future Vehicle Technology themed event.
Held at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry, the event was sponsored by Activate Group, Thatcham Research, and Stellantis, and supported by Corporate Partners: BASF, CAPS, Copart, Entegral, Enterprise, Mirka, Nationwide Vehicle Assistance, S&G Response, Solera Audatex; along with Partners: e2e, Gemini ARC, Repairify and Prasco.
Thatcham Research has coined the term ACE+ to describe the three key technologies influencing vehicles – autonomy, connectivity and electrification plus anything else – and Tom believes all are here to stay.
Automation
More and more assisted driving and autonomous features are being added to new models, and Tom warns that understanding the difference and ensuring that drivers are clear about where their responsibilities lay is critical to safety on the roads.
He highlighted the ‘hands off, eyes on’ system, which allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel but not their eyes off the road. Liability remains with the driver and Tom expects this feature to be included in almost all new models by the middle of next year, although much of the technology will be a subscription service.
He said, “All vehicle manufacturers are developing this system and it will be a big trend in the middle of next year, but it’s critical to explain to drivers that this is not self-driving because the line between assisted and automated is blurring and more difficult to manage and understand.”
The ‘hands off, eyes on’ system is part of a wider trend of advanced ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) features which is going to make calibration one of the most fundamental parts of vehicle repair.
Tom said, “Systems will get more advanced and more complicated. This is partly being driven by demand from regulators around increasing safety standards, and a lot of tech is now fitted as standard. We’ve not yet seen the reduction in claims frequency we’d like to, but there has been a reduction in severity.”
But while assisted driving will become more prevalent, Tom believes autonomy is still some way off.
This is not a technological challenge but a financial one. He revealed that Waymo, an established autonomous taxi service in North America, made a loss of nearly £900m last year and Tom said that until autonomy becomes profitable manufacturers will not deploy it.
He explained, “Manufacturers have been pulling away from full automation because there’s no money in it, and focussing on highly assisted systems instead. There is one caveat to that. If a Chinese manufacturer penetrates the market with high-tech vehicles and is brave enough, it could do an over-the-air update. That is possible.”
Connectivity
Meanwhile, Tom revealed that BMW has 22 million connected vehicles on the road and gets 145 terabytes of data per day from its network. He said that the challenge has now moved from generating data to interpreting it, and believes this is where AI comes in.
He said, “Data is the oil and AI is the engine. It can provide a lot of solutions, but it’s also something we are watching out for because when we’re feeding it so much information, we have to be careful. One big prediction is that AI will be legislated really hard in the next few years, from a UN and UK level.”
Tom’s second prediction was the continued overlap of cars and smart phones. He said that manufacturers are moving towards seamless integration between productivity, entertainment and payment, with mobility as a service one of the industry’s mega trends.
He explained, “Manufacturers are all moving to this model, so the customer is pulled into their whole ecosystem and is not just buying their car but all their products.”
Features on demand is part of this, allowing customers to turn systems on and off to suit their tastes, but Tom warned that regardless of whether a feature is used or not, repairers will still need to restore the vehicle to its full spec capability.
Electrification
Electric vehicle sales to private buyers may have stalled this year, but Tom is expecting registrations to accelerate again as a fleet of budget EVs launch into the market. He said that the affordable EV is just around the corner, with ‘an incoming wave of EVs priced under the £20,000 and £15,000 mark.’
Tom pointed to the BYD – which model name is as yet unknown – as a prime example, which is predicted to be available for under £15,000 and offers a range of 200 miles and full ADAS specifications.
“That car can completely change the adoption of privately owned EVs,” Tom said.
However, one potential stumbling block is the sustainability issue around EV batteries, with the focus on recycling rather than repairing. Tom suggested that until battery repair was possible, collisions involving budget EVs would almost always result in a total loss.
But as battery technology continues to advance, he said that repairing them would become possible – particularly those used in more premium vehicles.
