The Connected Car

Market Overview

A vehicle is a means of transportation. It can also be a place to relax, entertain, play games or work. In all cases, it is a consumer of energy. The world bank report [WB1] shows the per capita consumption of energy across the globe for a representative set of countries.

Over 37% of the world population lives in India and China and energy consumption is on a continuous rise in both these large nations. As per EIA report [EIA1] transportation accounts for nearly 20% of the total energy usage and is expected to rise as more people buy cars around the emerging economies of the world. That 20% is over and above energy used by the industries contributing to the transportation industry such as vehicle manufacturing.

There are several obvious inefficiencies when one looks at a 1-tonne vehicle carrying a 0.06 tonne passenger !

Today's research and development investments are primarily directed towards creating intelligent transportation systems. This requires a fundamentally new transportation systems vision and strategy.

The vehicle is fast becoming the object of convergence -- vehicle as a means of transportation, the autonomous vehicle, the modular vehicle, the time shared vehicle, the vehicle that plays, the vehicle that is a place to work, the vehicle that rolls in and out of public transportation and so on.

In 2014 - our team said "The best of the vehicles of 2018 are more likely to look like the vehicle of 2025 than the vehicle of 2014." Certainly, best autonomus vehicles of 2018 look nothing like 2014.

These are disruptive times for vehicles as some of the most talented researchers of the world define and develop The Connected Car. Designing the connected car is still very complex; design teams have to deal with creating hifidelity models for not just each element of the car (which is very complex) but each and every element of the transportation network. These models have to play and interact in order to test various elements of design and implementation. To summarize, there is need for a hi-fidelity (hierarchical) system model integration and simulation platform for designing connected vehicles.

References [WB1]     [EIA1]