Alberto Lodieu: “Many new companies will emerge in the autonomous vehicles industry”

The automotive expert and Senior Consultant at PTOLEMUS shared his knowledge with IMPACT Connected Car Community members in a Q&A session

“Connectivity and automation is happening very fast. Most developments are now happening at software level and more specifically in Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are still many opportunities, and I am sure that many new companies will emerge in the autonomous vehicles industry”. That was the conclusion of Alberto Lodieu when finishing the Q&A session held in IMPACT Connected Car (ICCar) Community last month.

The automotive expert and Senior Consultant at PTOLEMUS remarked the potential and importance of connected cars and autonomous vehicles in the smart mobility ecosystem. In fact, he thinks that in 2020 there will be 400 million connected cars in the world.

Lodieu was asked several questions by ICCar Community members during a very dynamic Q&A, and we have selected some of them:

Regarding value of connected vehicle data, what are the high value use cases (in terms of RoI) for the use of data in connected trucking fleets, connected passenger vehicle fleets and every day customer vehicles?

There are many high value use cases and they will all depend on several factors, including what is the main usage of the vehicle, where the vehicle is used, what are the driving characteristics, etc. However, if I have to generalize, I would say that those companies working on predictive analytics are the ones that can add more value. For passenger cars, predicting or estimating the risk of an accident is very complex, and thus highly valuable. The same applies for fleet, but predicting petrol consumption is also very interesting.

Which companies are in the lead to enable these services on a fleet level for trucks and passenger cars?

There are many companies which are very interesting, but I suggest you download our free abstracts in PTOLEMUS website, where we also have a huge list of interesting companies working on the domain. Have a look at the the mobility global forecast report!

Where do you see the main investments being spent in connected cars?

Investments are happening all over the value chain, but I believe that right now the focus is on the creation of new services, meaning in first understanding customer needs, and second managing and extracting value of data to better cover these needs.

What is your general opinion about feasibility of the implementation in the medium term of SAE levels?

I do think all actors are taken into account, of course final users should be further taken into account as the level of automation increases. Regarding SAE levels, I think they are all feasible and we are moving fast. There are many things to adjust, in particular at software level (AI), but in terms of hardware, most of the technology required has been developed.

Do you have projected growth numbers for the Telematics industry? Or an idea about how it will evolve in the coming years?

Yes, it will continue growing at 2 digits pace. More and more new vehicles are connected, for users it is becoming a must. OEMs are all working on the subject, and there are more and more suppliers of after-market connectivity devices and services.

What is your opinion about startups creating “barriers of entry” in the connected car space? Investors seem to be worried that big corporations could make a startup irrelevant if they start offering a similar service.

I think that they do have a lot of power, but you can see that Uber started less than 10 years ago and managed to grow as big as it is now, so if you manage to create a critical mass and position yourself, you can create the conditions to grow.

Some experts mention that one of the big problems for the massive deployment of autonomous cars is the high costs of the sensors (like the LIDAR). Do you think that is correct?

The cost is already decreasing a lot, I don’t think this is the main barrier. Actually for lower levels of autonomy you don’t need to have the most expensive and sophisticated LIDARs.

Do you think that the arrival of the autonomous car will be the end of the car in property? Will we gradually stop owning personal cars to subscribe to services with flat rates or pay per use?

My personal opinion is that it won’t. I think some people will still be willing to own a car, but of course the fact that it is autonomous will push for new models, such as ride hailing and car sharing, to grow faster.

About Alberto Lodieu

Alberto Lodieu is a Senior Consultant at PTOLEMUS, a strategy consulting and research firm specialized in the mobility ecosystem, where he has participated in over 15 projects in the mobility domain with clients such as the European Commission or the French Space Agency, among others.

Before joining PTOLEMUS, he worked for more than five years as a Strategy and Operation Consultant for Deloitte, where he specialized in Financial Services and Transportation. Besides, he also created a startup.

Next Q&A in ICCar Community with the entrepreneur Gregorio López

In ICCar Community we keep organising Q&As willing to learn about the connected car and autonomous vehicle industry. On Friday July 20th we are hosting one more session with Gregorio López, passionate about startups and tech. He is the CEO and Founder of MOX, an instant delivery startup specialised in food delivery and sustainability, since they use bikes and electric cars. He will share with ICCar Community members his experience.

If it sounds like an interesting session for you, save your spot now and register for the event!

Written by Laura Argilés, Community Manager at FundingBox

This Q&A was organised with the help of Connected Mobility HUB.