Automotive News Europe - March 2, 2009 - 13

March 2, 2009 www.autonewseurope.com · PAGE 13 Spotlight on Technology Electronic net extends driver’s sight Car-to-infrastructure and car-to-car communications still suffer from launch delays Tony Lewin Automotive News Europe More than 2 million people converged on Washington, D.C., in January to witness the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Many of them traveled there by car. With the city authorities implementing many special road closures, the travel situation was predicted to be chaotic. That’s why General Motors decided to open up the full spectrum of its OnStar services so that all levels of subscribers could press the OnStar button in their vehicles to receive turnby-turn navigation commands, information on street closures and parking, and positioning information for those who got lost. The GM OnStar service, which has parallels in Ford’s recently launched Sync system, is one of the world’s first car communications networks and a step in the direction of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). The ITS Society held its world congress in New York last November, with president and CEO Scott Belcher declaring that “these ITS technologies allow cars and roads to communicate with each other. They can prevent accidents, minimize traffic delays by reducing congestion and suggesting alternative routes based on real-time data, and even find you an available parking space.” Other functions Belcher could have mentioned were unlocking your car world market for automotive telematics (which includes C2C and C2I systems) would grow from 6.2 million systems in 2008, worth ¤270 million, to 16.5 million systems in 2013, valued at ¤900 million – a compound annual growth rate of 21.4 percent. But Wolfgang Bernhart, of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in Stuttgart, is skeptical that buyers will pay extra for safety functions or comfort aids such as remote start. “Many customers prefer something like alloy wheels,” he said. “There was this big hype around telematics in 2001 and 2002, when everyone thought there would be a big demand. Not much happened,” Bernhart said. While Berninger at GM Europe is convinced that the C2I system will be the first into series production, David McClure, head of telematics and ITS at SBD Consultants in central England, believes car-to-car communications will be first. “C2C will come first because automakers can do this on their own – there does not need to be any government involvement,” he told ANE. Pointing out the administrative mess now surrounding the eCall emergency service, McClure suggests that the technology for C2C would form the ideal building block for later C2I installations. Either way, there is agreement on several key points. Full C2C and C2I are many years away – the C2C Consortium suggests 2015 – and the launch will have to be carefully coordinated. The proponents The Car-to-Car Communication Consortium aims to establish common European technical standards that will enable cars of all brands to communicate wirelessly with each other and with the surrounding infrastructure. In addition, the Consortium has secured royalty-free exclusive frequency bands for C2C communications and will develop deployment strategies and business models to speed up market penetration of C2C systems. Consortium members include Opel, Audi, BMW, Daimler, Fiat, Renault and Volkswagen, as well as truckmaker AB Volvo, car and motorcycle producer Honda, and electronics specialists Siemens, Alpine, NEC and Philips. “Technically, I’m sure it will work,” said McClure. “The biggest question mark is over deployment – how to get it into enough cars for it to be effective.” Bernhart said it is a classic chicken and egg situation. Experts in the field say that a penetration of about 10 percent is required before C2C’s networking potential begins to work properly. Few buyers will be willing to pay extra cash for a system that will not become active for several years. “One solution would be to get something into the vehicles that customers can use from day one,” McClure said. “It could be a multifunctional Wi-Fi module, which the driver could activate at hotspots such as ANE garages and at home.” One safety benefit of car-to-car communication is illustrated here as the driver is alerted to the presence of another vehicle when approaching an intersection. remotely if you forget your keys inside, warning of obstructions ahead, setting a driving speed so that all the traffic lights are green, or diagnosing faults in your car so your service station knows in advance what work will be required. cate with each other, so we’re all using the same standards,” he told Automotive News Europe in a telephone interview. “Last year’s demonstration [involving multiple automakers, at Opel’s Dudenhofen proving ground] was a real milestone. It was the first time such a large number of vehicle and equipment manufacturers were able to present systems that all worked together.” Among the programs demonstrated in the October 2008 exercise were safety-related warning systems. These, said Berninger, are likely to be first to market. “Work zones always cause big problems in traffic flow,” he said. “This is one of the first applications we can expect.” Market analysts Frost & Sullivan forecast in a recent report that the European standards In Europe these functions have come together under the headings of C2C – for car-to-car communication – and C2I, meaning car-to-infrastructure communication. Automakers and suppliers are working together in the C2C Communications Consortium to develop unified standards, said Harald Berninger, head of vehicle-to-vehicle communications at GM Europe. “All vehicles will have to communi- How it works Individual vehicles will be equipped with wireless units with a range of a few hundred meters. As soon as one vehicle comes into the range of another, they communicate automatically, exchanging information and messages. Groups of vehicles form a constantly changing network and allow messages to travel long distances as they are relayed from car to car. The system will have the ability to calculate the position and direction of travel of surrounding vehicles, providing the potential for safety functions such as forward collision alert and adaptive cruise control. In terms of hardware, C2C and C2I will require a router, which acts as the electronic gateway into the car, and modules that provide the functions accessed through that gateway. A useful parallel is that of Bluetooth, where the underlying standardized technology allows a suite of different protocols to be superimposed for different applications. The C2C Consortium has secured a dedicated frequency – 5.9 GHz – for its safety functions. C2I communications will operate at the 5.8 GHz frequency, which is already used in other countries for highway and parking tolls and even – in Japan, at least – paying for McDonalds drive-through meals. Few experts are yet willing to speculate on the likely cost of the in-vehicle inIllustration: C2C Communication Consortium Safety solution Leading supplier Continental is actively promoting its eCall service, which, it says, could save 2,500 lives each year in Europe. Continental is worried that the European Commission’s eCall initiative has stalled, even though it is due to be implemented by 2010. The GSM mobile phone network is used by eCall systems to automatically transmit help messages to emergency services if the vehicle is involved in an accident and the airbags are triggered. The message gives the vehicle’s exact location as well as details of the impact and the number of passengers. Continental is now investigating extra services to add on to eCall in order to improve its chances of adoption. The benefits What C2C and C2I can provide Alerts for hazardous situations ahead Warnings about road conditions such as ice Pre-crash warning to vehicle systems Route guidance Diversions around jams Warnings of emergency vehicles in vicinity “Green light” optimal speed advisory Merging assistance when joining motorways Notification of local points of interest Remote diagnostics for servicing Internet access Music and information downloads Message relay to other vehicles Infrastructure-to-car communication will alert drivers to roadworks ahead. stallation, but telematics expert David McClure of SBD Consultants believes it will be less than the cost of an ECU for Continental’s eCall system, which is currently €100.

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Automotive News Europe - March 2, 2009

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