Fueling the digital transformation in the Automotive & Transportation Industry, the F1 race has taken on this world at full speed creating a revolutionary Connected Vehicles, Autonomous Vehicles, and Smart Mobility which will disrupt the way people live and work. According to the market research, the connected car market is expected to grow from 5.1 Million units in 2015 to 37.7 Million units by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 35.54% during the forecast period.

The Connect Cars & Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) evolution has compelled the Automotive/Transportation industry to embrace adoption of the IoT technologies in its full capacity. However, the industry needs to tackle the changing trends & address various challenges along the path. Let me further explain:

1. Smart Mobility: Due to potential urbanisation consumers are undergoing a paradigm shift. Owing to one’s desire to move to urban localities a trend exacerbates the need for public transportation or ride sharing apps which is affordable, efficient, reduction in travel time, and convenient. Today, companies like Uber, Grab, Ola, and other players have disrupted the traditional mindset of individuals. Their USP is ‘Convenience and Affordable.’

In fact, the ride-sharing apps are being used by individuals from all walks of life right from the Millennial to a Senior Citizen who find it economical and affordable. In countries like Singapore where the Certification of Entitlement (COE) is sky-rocketing or in Europe where the parking charges are obnoxiously high makes it challenging for the growing middle-class who still dream of owning a car. The dream of owning cars does open up the market for Smart Connected Cars.

Companies like BMW, GM, Toyota, etc. have invested billions of dollars in innovations for designing & building the game-changing cars addressing the mobility, growing customer demands for CAVs. These cars have inbuilt advanced and intelligent navigation system which guides the user on the best route to the destination by predicting traffic conditions, locating parking spaces, auto parking, hybrid car system – driverless or driver, integration with personal devices or things, sophisticated entertainment systems, better reliability through OTA (over-the-air) updates to vehicle systems. etc. which is delivering value for everyone and changing the overall travel experience.

Now comes the next big wave in advancements of automotive and transportation Industry – “Autonomous Vehicles – (also known as self-driving cars or robotic vehicles) are motor vehicles that operate without a human driver, which reduces the cost of transportation and improves convenience and (in most cases) safety.” Tesla or Uber are creating a revolutionary & environmentally friendly transportation like ‘Flying Cars’ and ‘Electrical Cars.’ Telsa has pioneered in the American development of ‘Electric Vehicles and Flying Cars’ for addressing Environmental issues such as Climate Change, Reduction of Energy & Natural resource usage, and Alternate Infrastructure such as Air transport to support the road traffic. This disruptive advancement leads for addressing the next two major and most important factors:

2. Safety, Security, and Convenience: Securing the CAV is a hot topic for the vehicle manufacturers, government/regulators, insurance companies, etc. The CAV security has been the focus question & subject of US lawsuit against the Ford, GM, and Toyota, given that it has identified and reported an average of fifty distinct attack points in the CAV ecosystem, and there have been enough proofs of ‘Internet of Vehicles’ concept demonstrates that the attackers can take complete control of the vehicle systems.

In the present scenario according to Gartner most of the automakers are using in-car electronic architectures developed for less-complex vehicles which are non-scalable, non-compliance to the highest level of cybersecurity, insufficient feature performance in comparison to the latest solution designs which indicates a significant concern for the Safety and Security of the CAVs.

However, these challenges or gaps in the technology/solution open up many opportunities for the IoT Industry for developing a robust, scalable, interoperable, and highly secured solution and systems. I would like to recommend the automakers, system integrators, multi-nationals, service providers, phone makers, etc. to radically adopt new technologies as mentioned below which will address all the issues relating to the CAVs:

  • Edge computing platform – Data filtration at the edge level
  • Sensors – Sense or act aware of surrounding
  • Artificial Intelligence – Steering a self-driving or driverless or autonomous vehicle
  • Multimodal biometrics – Authenticating and controlling or granting access to data
  • Predictive Analytics – Preventive maintenance or to avert any emergencies even before the event has occurred
  • Geo-fencing – Overrides commands from an unauthorised operator.

The above technologies will propel for building an end-to-end software-defined car or vehicle solution ensuring highest safety, security, and privacy to an individual’s data/information and assuring most convenient user experience. With that, the next-in-line to focus is:

3. Regulation and Policy Constraints: It is the crucial moment where the Local/Regional/State/Country Government plays a critical role in accelerating the advent of Connected and Autonomous Cars or Vehicles (CAVs). These next-gen technologies will reshape the future of Mobility, reducing fatalities, accidents, enhancing personal mobility, generation of ecological and environmental benefits while yielding an estimated of dollar One trillion-a-year Economic benefit just in the USA alone.

In order, to achieve this colossal vision the Government Regulatory Authorities and the Policy Makers should proactively act quickly in establishing the policies and regulations that will encourage R&D, experimentation for the automakers and technology providers to test the innovations & prototypes ensuring highest standards for Safety, Security, and Privacy of the User as well as his/her data.

Preparing the City and Nation for the Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, the Government needs to rethink how it is going to retrofit its existing and scalable Infrastructure and creating a decarbonisation environment through electric mobility or renewable energy to achieve the objective of ‘Green City’ a dream come true.

With the innovation of ‘Flying cars, Electric car, or Robotic vehicles,’ the Government/Regulatory authority has an urgent need for defining the ‘Air Traffic Rules’ and the formation of an independent Regulatory Authority for addressing the ‘Land Air Transport’ (LAT) Infrastructure. The LAT regulatory authority will then become responsible for collaborating with the Industry players for defining, planning, and developing the infrastructure that will integrate with LAT.

To summarise, in my opinion, the Smart Connected & Autonomous vehicles will be key to the digital transformation while the Land Air Transport in reshaping the future of Transportation Industry in its entirety. I believe that the Industry stakeholders must come together for building an out-of-the-world and revolutionary transportation system/infrastructure which is going to be the backbone for making the vision of Safe City and Smart Nation a dream come true.