The impact of autonomous vehicles – part 1

Continuous innovations and advancements in communication technologies, as well as digital technologies coupled with price reduction of sensors, are constantly enhancing the level of automation in our day- to-day lives. With this in mind, we bring to you a series of expert notes on the impact of autonomous vehicles and the trends going forward. It is part of the eight expert notes that we will be publishing every week. Stay tuned.

Autonomous vehicles (AV), also known as self-driving, driverless, or robotic vehicles, are those in which some aspect of vehicle control is automated by the car. With technological advancements in external sensing, path planning, vehicle control, and more, innovations in autonomous and highly automated vehicle development are increasingly finding their way into consumer vehicles in the form of active safety, driver assistance systems, and limited automated driving features. Innovations in AV may fundamentally transform how the current transportation system works and change our lives in terms of how we travel. As is the case in all disruptions, AVs will bring slowdown and present new opportunities in the form of new business models. In this series of Expert Notes titled “The impact of autonomous vehicles,” we are only trying to identify the entities that may be impacted (at very high level) due to the launch of autonomous vehicle. We are not establishing and quantifying the impact.

Let’s begin with the levels of automation in vehicles. Largely, levels 0 to 5 are defined with increasing levels of automation in vehicles; these are globally standardized and accepted.

While cars up to “hands off” are already available in the market, based on few research papers, it is expected that “eyes-off” automation cars will be available for consumers by 2025. “Eyes-off” automation vehicles will include feature such as vehicle-to-vehicle communication, vehicle-to-device communication, and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, valet park assist, highway autopilot, emergency driver assist, intersection pilot, and 3D cloud-based navigation. Fully automated vehicles are expected to be available in the market by 2030.

Each level of automation in cars would have its impact on various stakeholders, industry segments (manufacturing, insurance, banking, and telecommunication), government, public, etc. With the launch of the autonomous vehicle (from “eyes off” onwards), there will be an impact on our day-to- day lives, business models of many industry segments, operating models of government, and local authorities. This series of notes will focus on the impact AV has on the various stakeholders and industry segments. Obviously, new business opportunities will sprout in the space of mobility, wireless technologies, prototyping and simulation, among others. We will touch upon a few of these in the subsequent sections of this series.

Neeraj Mathur is Automotive and Manufacturing domain expert and works on delivering business solutions to Automotive & Manufacturing customers of Capgemini through innovations and business process assessments. You can reach him at neeraj.mathur@capgemini.com

This article is co-authored by Satishchandra Nayak, he is a Business Process expert who works on delivering practical Innovation to Automotive and Manufacturing customers of Capgemini.  You can contact him at satishchandra.nayak@capgemini.com.

Neeraj Mathur

Expert in IIOT, Industry 4.0, Machine Learning, Smart Factories

19+ years of extensive experience in manufacturing operations & Supply chain management Consulting (including MES), Supply chain operations strategy , Digital (IIoT) Consulting, Functional consulting, Business transformation programs.
Six Sigma Quality coupled with in depth experience in end to end Electronics Manufacturing processes, Tractability system/Digital thread, New product introduction, Process design/re engineering, DFMA (design for manufacturing & assembly), continuous process optimization, data collection strategy, Business KPI’s/performance metrics, Analytics, Lean Six Sigma, Demand Forecasting & Planning, Supply Planning, Production Planning, Inventory Optimization, predictive maintenance, predictive quality, Supply chain risk management, Process Monitoring & Control, Automated Optical Inspection (AOI), and implementation of business solutions. CSCP (2015), Six Sigma Black Belt.
Well versed & experience in Electronics, Automotive, FMCG, Industrial & Pharma (API) Manufacturing & supply chain operations coupled with excellent technology knowledge and in depth exposure to ERP packages (Oracle, SAP)