How will 5G change the car market?
Today, the technologies that digital players (like our company Bright Box) are offering the automotive industry are mostly directed towards improving traffic safety, using cars efficiently, and making the driving experience better. 5G guarantees that all of these objectives will be met, and they may also lead to a full-scale change to the entire vehicle environment rather than just particular parts of it.
At the beginning of this year leading automotive, telecom, and ITS companies unveiled the first cellular V2X trials in Japan. Qualcomm Incorporated expected C-V2X (Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything) to be ready for commercial deployment in vehicles by 2019.
C-V2X radio technology is state-of-the-art cellular technology and is being validated for global deployments. It leverages upper-layer protocols developed by the automotive industry over years of research to support new advanced end-to-end use cases. C-V2X direct communications provide enhanced range and reliability without relying on cellular network assistance or coverage.
From a traffic safety standpoint, the development of C-V2X technology ensures that all participants in the traffic environment will receive up-to-date information. Moreover, they will also be able to find out what is going on sooner than they ever could have before — back when they had to rely on their own eyes and ears. Cars will learn about other cars and their locations via radio waves and warn drivers about the situation on the road in advance. For instance, passing on the left could be impossible because the lane is currently occupied, or information about the condition of nearby cars could be relevant (for example, a car a few blocks ahead may have broken down and be blocking the lane). Some of these scenarios are already available today using tools such as Waze. However, their accuracy and reaction speed when highway conditions change are incomparably worse, and, unlike C-V2X networks, they do not provide near-realtime operation.
From the perspective of efficient vehicle use, imagine if your car knew all traffic light operating modes and speed limits for the road ahead. It would be able to suggest an optimal pattern of acceleration and braking for this stretch of road from the perspective of fuel consumption. You can imagine what a difference that would make — including to your wallet. A scenario like this is quite simple if you exchange data on C-V2X networks.
A scenario where C-V2X networks would improve the driving and vehicle usage experience would be something like the following: I suppose we all know how difficult it can be to find somewhere to park. But with 5G, your car will be able to discover the current parking situation in the neighborhood. Parking will just be a matter of driving to the free spot it identifies, with no more agonizing searching. This would require every parking spot to transmit information about its occupancy level over the network. Another interesting example might be to broadcast a video stream from your car. This might be useful if the car is being used by members of your family or parked at an insecure location. Thanks to the broadband access included in 5G standards, video streaming will be an accessible and high-quality way to check up on conditions inside and outside of your car at a distance.
In addition to these three goals, 5G will change user scenarios for players in the auto market. Very soon road conditions will take on a hybrid-model format that is interesting from a digital perspective. In other words, a single highway network will include classical non-digital objects alongside digitized objects such as connected cars, smart infrastructure, and even fully autonomous vehicles. This will pose a certain challenge when it comes to organizing a common digital environment among various providers and manufacturers of solutions.
5G will make it possible to transmit large quantities of data between the car and the surrounding infrastructure. Consequently, it will be possible to digitize the road map virtually in full, and in considerable detail. I can see several platforms for exchanging data with the road network in real time emerging (and I can even imagine commercial platforms on the same footing as government ones).
A logical result would be the use of data in exceptional situations on the highway — specifically, accidents. Data gathered about accidents could be used and analyzed by municipalities when building roads and planning traffic, or by insurance companies to improve the accuracy of their forecasts and vehicle usage modeling.
There is still no way to say when 5G will come to full adoption. As we all know, the car market is a rather conservative environment (due to the production cycles for new platforms and products), so we should think in terms of years. But the changes that are being implemented as part of 3GPP are already taking effect today. Some manufacturers are already planning to equip their cars with 5G-compatible TCUs (including C-V2X, which was mentioned above). Starting to use the technologies that make up the 5G as quickly as possible is very important for the mutual interaction of all members of the infrastructure, from equipment manufacturers and city infrastructure managers to communications providers and auto manufacturers. But the best solution for today is to experiment more with the latest generation of technology and make bold decisions about including it in production.
