Visteon Corporation highlighted five trends in the global automotive industry, which operates cyclically and highly sensitive to general economic conditions.

Above all else, the company believes that future success in the automotive industry depends, in part, on aligning with customers to support its efforts to effectively address the challenges associated with the following major trends and developments in the global automotive industry.

Automotive Industry Trends

Electronic content and connectivity

Electronic content in vehicles continues to increase due to various regulatory requirements and consumer demand for increased vehicle performance and functionality.

In addition, the use of electronic components can reduce weight, speed assembly, improve fuel economy, improve emissions, increase safety, and improve vehicle performance.

So these benefits coincide with vehicles becoming more electric, connected, and automated.

Additionally, digital and wearable technologies have dramatically influenced the lifestyle of today’s consumers, who expect products that enable that lifestyle.

Consequently, the vehicle cabin is being transformed into a fully digital environment with multi-display systems incorporating larger, curved and more complex displays and the consolidation of discrete electronic control units into a multi-core domain controller.

Electric vehicles

Another trend in the automotive industry is related to accelerated electrification, driven by government incentives and standards, announced restrictions on internal combustion engine vehicles in several cities and countries, and the significant increase in investment in electrification by original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

The move to electric vehicles increases the digital content of a vehicle, as most of the electronic components in the cabin will be fully digital to support the new electrical architecture.

Additionally, all battery electric vehicles will require a battery management system to manage the rechargeable battery pack.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving

The industry continues to move towards semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles.

The Society of Automotive Engineers has defined five levels of autonomy ranging from levels one and two with driver assistance functions in which the driver is responsible for monitoring the environment, to level five with full autonomy in all conditions.

Already levels one and two are popular in the market, while levels three and above use a combination of sensors, radars, cameras and LiDAR, which require sensor fusion technologies and machine learning, as the system takes on the role of monitor the environment.

Level three includes features such as highway pilot and parking assist technology, for which a higher market penetration rate is expected over the next few years.

Protection and security

The fourth of the automotive industry trends is that governments continue to focus regulatory efforts on safer transportation.

Consequently, OEMs are working to improve occupant and pedestrian safety by incorporating more safety-oriented technology into their vehicles.

Additionally, in-vehicle connectivity has increased the need for robust cybersecurity systems to protect data, applications, and associated infrastructure.

As security features are evolving with advances in sensors and silicon, vendors must enable their customers’ security/protection initiatives, including the development of new technologies.

Vehicle standardization

OEMs continue to standardize vehicle platforms globally, resulting in fewer individual vehicle platforms, design cost savings, and greater scale of economies through the production of more models of each platform. .

Having operations in the geographic markets where OEMs produce global platforms enables suppliers to meet the needs of OEMs more economically and efficiently, making global coverage a source of competitive advantage significant for providers with a diversified global presence.

Also, OEMs are looking for suppliers for further collaboration to reduce costs, reduce risk, and decrease total time to market.

Vendors that can provide fully engineered pre-assembled component combinations, systems and solutions are positioned to take advantage of the trend toward systems sourcing.

As vehicles become more connected and cabs more digitized, vendors that can offer modular hardware architectures, «open» software architectures, and a software platform approach will be poised to help OEMs achieve greater reusability. of validated hardware circuits, design scalability and faster development cycles.