Future of Mobility

The automobile industry does not want to lose out to the smartphone market in the development of apps for automobiles. For example, the Mirror Link technology for android phones reflects whatever is happening on the smartphone on the infotainment device. Similarly there is Apple Play which connects iPhones and mirrors the display on the smartphone on the vehicle navigation panel. There are also free apps like fun2drive from Bosch on Apple Store which aids vehicle diagnostics and provides vehicle performance information.

As far as connected vehicles are concerned, even 5-10 years ago there was talk of bringing the internet to the car… But now the trend has reversed. It is no longer about bringing the internet to the car; rather it is about putting the car on the internet. The car becomes a node on the internet with its own TCP/IP address and other protocols that enable it to transmit and receive data.

OEM companies are trying to develop an app ecosystem as well as a community bound to the system, similar to what has happened in the smartphone industry. There are a lot of open platforms which allow developers to build in-vehicle applications. These applications could be apps, different interfaces for others to add elements to the software, etc. Most importantly, there is a strong community behind these efforts.

Autonomous Cars and Supporting Trends

Trends in vehicle safety and more specifically predictive safety such as predictive emergency braking are paving the way for autonomous driving in the future. Predictive emergency braking serves to detect situations where the driver is not applying brakes though there is a great danger of an accident and the system applies the brakes, overriding the driver. This feature will be a part of many of the European cars in 2016 and 2017 as the Euro NCAP (New Car Accreditation Program) makes such features mandatory for vehicles with 5-star rating.

Evasion assistance enables the vehicle to steer around sudden obstacles to avoid collision. Lane Assistance keeps a vehicle in the centre of the lane if or whenever it goes off the lane. This already exists in European vehicles. Automatic detection of pedestrians crossing the street and giving a warning to drivers, as well as advanced systems which apply emergency brakes in case of a possible accident scenario have also been implemented. Turn Crossing allows vehicles to be coordinated / regulated so that there are no accidents at the intersections.

There are features for driver comfort and safety too. Driver Drowsiness Detection is one such which monitors the driver alertness and gives warning to a drowsy driver. Then there are light and sound assistance systems. While driving through a bend in a road, the vehicle headlight beam goes straight whereas the road ahead is curved, resulting in loss of visibility. This is being solved by using the vehicle’s navigation system to assess the curvature of the road and steering the light beam to follow this curvature. Park n Manoeuvre is a new park assist feature which allows the driver to stop the vehicle at the entrance of a parking lo  and with the aid of an app, the vehicle automatically locates a vacant slot and parks itself. Similarly when the driver has to retrieve the vehicle, the app enables the driver to recall the car.

Many of these systems have gone beyond the research stage to actual deployment. E.g. many OEMs have launched Pedestrian Detection and Pre- Collision Assist features. This is done with radar technology which continuously scans the road ahead of the car.

Fully autonomous cars are still at the research and validation stages and it might be some time before they become commercially viable. They increase the productivity of the drivers because they take over most of the driving. However, there are many security and safety challenges to overcome. Autonomous cars are vulnerable to all the threats that mobile phone users and internet users are subject to, such as hacking, virus attack etc, due to their open nature
and connectivity to the internet. Then there are legal issues such as who is responsible or liable in case of accidents. Questions on the reliability and validation of the system also arise.

Further autonomous cars are quite expensive currently due to the complex, sophisticated hardware and software systems used. For example, just the Driver Drowsiness Detection feature may cost about $3,000 in a luxury car, whereas in India, we expect an entire car to be available at this price. Making these cars affordable is a challenge.