What technology trends in the automotive industry are worth watching?

Electric cars are making steady progress

Sales of electric vehicles have been growing in recent years and are expected to exceed 15 million units in 2023. In addition, according to Bloomberg, global sales of vans and trucks will also reach 600,000 units in 2023, an increase of 80% over 2022. Major market players and even startups across the globe are looking to get a piece of the electrification pie. The market will continue to be driven by electric vehicles in 2023.

Internationally, companies such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai have made great strides in electric vehicles. In China, Geely, NIO, BYD and many other car companies are also making efforts to innovate on the big road of electric vehicles. In addition, at the 2023 CES, non-passenger cars such as pure electric excavators and electric boats were also widely displayed.

New use cases for self-driving cars continue to emerge

In addition to family cars, self-driving cars are also constantly emerging more new application scenarios. Motional has teamed up with Lyft to launch a new autonomous taxi based on the IONIQ 5, Toyota Boshoku is being used as a carpool or rental meeting room in Japan, and public transportation is also evolving, such as ZF and Beep collaborating on self-driving shuttles, but it is still some way from commercialization.

BMW's latest electric concept car, the "i Vision Dee," also has a new development. The focus of this model is not just on autonomous driving, but also on providing the driver with the information they need at all times. BMW has announced that the design will go into production in 2025. In addition, Nvidia announced a partnership with Foxconn, which will incorporate Nvidia's DRIVE Orin chips and DRIVE Hyperion sensors in its autonomous vehicle platform, resulting in shorter time-to-market and faster cost recovery.

Sensors also play an important role in modern cars. Bosch has been a major manufacturer of MEMS sensors, liDAR and image sensors, and recently introduced RideCare Companion solutions designed to improve safety when carpooling. Lidar sensors have also improved, such as Mobileye's Lidar measuring longer distances, while Innoviz Technologies' lidar has dramatically reduced costs.

In addition, autonomous driving systems are now used in a variety of industrial fields, such as agricultural trucks, racing cars, mining, boats and so on. As with ride-sharing, the challenge of quickly commercializing these vehicles remains a priority. In order to better address the challenges, the industry has recently launched a number of collaborations, such as Continental and Amba, Magna and LG, which will help promote the integration of hardware and software solutions in the future.

The future of the automotive industry cannot be separated from software-defined cars

Software-defined vehicles are taking the automotive industry by storm and are becoming an important factor in driving mobility innovation. Software innovation can not only improve safety and convenience, but also enable more on-board functions, even from body color changes to heated seat belts to ADAS, are dependent on software, and more technology companies will embrace the concept of software-defined cars in the future.

Cities are becoming digitally intelligent, and technology is becoming more sophisticated. Cars will always need sophisticated hardware systems, and software integration must keep up.

Software and hardware must be combined in order to truly achieve a software-defined car. As new use cases continue to emerge, developers need a hardware platform with computing power and flexibility. However, due to the complexity and availability of hardware, products are difficult to bring to market, so increasing efforts to develop cutting-edge software has become a top priority.

Sunsys can play an important role in integrating with the existing ecosystem and provide strong technical support to help Oems, semiconductor companies, tier 1 suppliers and developers seize the new opportunities that have arrived and continue to emerge.