October 2, 2023 | By Rob Pegoraro | Light Reading |
At MWC Las Vegas, telecom industry execs suggested ways to pull out of a tech deployment parking lot.
LAS VEGAS – MWC23 – The connected-car industry has a paradox hiding under its hood: While the radio in a new car will have to serve for years and possibly decades longer than the radio in a new phone, vehicles rolling off assembly lines today remain far more likely to include only 4G connectivity.
At MWC Las Vegas, a panel track Thursday morning yielded that warning, but also forecasts of safer roads, more personalized in-car experiences and expanded business models that a 5G-fueled future can deliver for connected vehicles.
Connected cars as a trailing indicator
The program opened with TechInsights analyst Roger Lanctot outlining the box that automakers have put themselves in by sticking with LTE—by that research firm’s estimates, 5G won’t show up on most new light-duty vehicles produced until 2027. And that looked optimistic compared to Qualcomm’s estimate of 2028 for 5G to cross 50%, as shared by product-management VP Jeff Arnold in a later talk Thursday.
“If an automaker, I can do most of the applications we’re talking about with LTE,” Lanctot said. But while that’s been cheaper in the short run, over the long term it will yield vehicles left offline, a risk carmakers should know from the forced retirement of GM’s first-generation, AMPS-only OnStar system: “LTE ain’t gonna be around for 15-20 years.”
In his presentation, Lanctot painted a picture of carmakers searching for directions while driving, as seen in such recent developments as Daimler reprovisioning from AT&T to T-Mobile while BMW is now moving from T-Mobile to Verizon. He also nodded to GM backing away from an unpopular move to stick a $1,500 mandatory surcharge for three years of OnStar connectivity into vehicle prices (which he characterized as “we really haven’t figured out how to sell this to the consumer”) while Toyota opted to make its own connectivity free for the first 10 years.
Getting with the 5G program is the only viable path forward, especially when carmakers like GM back away from supporting smartphone-projection systems like Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto in favor of having apps run directly in a car’s display, a much more bandwidth-intensive scenario. Lanctot said car data usage is now going from hundreds of megabytes to between four and six gigabytes monthly.
The rise of electric cars represents another boost to 5G adoption, he continued: “They’re starting from scratch, so automakers can accelerate the adoption of these systems.”
But the strongest incentive to move to 5G is the most straightforward: the chance to make more money. Lanctot cited a TechInsights survey that estimated automakers could boost revenues by 10% in 2027 by selling features over the air, which would be good for $450 billion over 100 million vehicles averaging $45,000 each. Another survey found that customers in the U.S., Western Europe and China would most likely pay subscriptions for safety and comfort features.
(BMW might disagree, having given up on selling seat warming on a subscription basis.)
In his talk, Qualcomm’s Arnold sketched out a vision of predictive intelligence that evoked having Google Assistant take the wheel.
“It promises to make the cockpit interactions even more personalized,” he said. “The vehicle can plan your routing for your drive; it can predict where you’re going to go.”
The topic of driver privacy didn’t come up in his talk or those of others on this panel track—with the exception of an overview of efforts to develop a secure, private, cross-platform standard for sharable digital car keys.
C-V2X: expect delays
Prospects also appeared more complicated for another technology that was supposed to boost demand for car connectivity: “C-V2X,” as in “cellular vehicle to everything” networks that allow traffic lights, sensors, and other vehicles to inform vehicles about their surroundings.
On the one hand, such firms as Tesla and Waymo have decided to keep all the critical processing for their autonomous driving inside each vehicle so an overloaded network doesn’t leave a self-driving car stalled in traffic.
On the other hand, as multiple speakers noted, C-V2X adoption has remained a voluntary proposition in the U.S. and Europe, while China’s government has mandated its use. As a result, TechInsights expects that 90% of V2X deployments will happen in China over the next three to four years.
In the U.S., V2X faces the added obstacles of the FCC rerouting its connected-vehicle strategy in 2020 to C-V2X away from the earlier DSRC (Dedicated Short-Range Communications) standard while also reassigning some of the 5.9 GHz frequencies eyed for DSRC for unlicensed applications. This pivot drew political and legal pushback. The FCC has since been granting approval for V2X projects on a case-by-case waiver basis; for instance, in August, the FCC okayed 17 applications.
Brad Stertz, VP of government affairs for Audi of America, said in a panel: “For automakers, it’s tough to get ahead of the regulations.”
What might coax carmakers and municipalities to deploy V2X without a Washington hand pushing it forward?
Having it automate a first- or last-mile solution could help.
“I think there is consumer demand for a car that comes to me when I need it,” Lanctot said in a nod to Halo, which now has remotely-driven cars coming to car-share customers around Vegas. He also put in this wish list item for future travel: “I want to pull up to the terminal and just let the rental car find its way to the parking lot.”
Quantifiable time or efficiency improvements can also ease the sales pitch.
“We think C-V2X’s compelling argument is avoiding problems,” Stertz said, He pointed to a test of having school buses use V2X to cue up traffic-signal prioritization, which yielded fuel-economy improvements of at least 12% and also meant that students eligible for free breakfast got to their schools on time to eat it.
Audi’s passenger cars can’t get a green light extended. Still, the company already offers a Traffic Light Information System option that animates a dashboard display indicating when an upcoming light will turn green or red and offering corresponding driving advice.
An executive with AT&T – which announced an expanded partnership with the EV maker Rivian at the show – pointed to the carrier’s work with HAAS Alert to send real-time notifications to compatible cars about approaching first-responder vehicles.
“It seems so simple, but to execute this is challenging,” said Ashton Pierre, director of connected-car business development at AT&T, in another Thursday panel. “You can see visually when an emergency vehicle is approaching.”
But V2X can also benefit people who aren’t in any powered vehicle. In another one of the panels in this Thursday-morning session, the CTO of an Atlanta suburb pinned down one upside of what he called “a pretty large investment,” on the order of $8 million, in building out V2X infrastructure that’s also helped animate a set of autonomous battery-electric shuttles.
Brendan Branham, CTO of Peachtree Corners, said: “Now the vehicle that’s 200 yards away knows that there’s a person in the crosswalk.”
Read the original article HERE.
