Are commercial fleets lagging in connectivity?

Most current data suggests that commercial vehicles are falling behind in the connectivity stakes.

Vehicle connectivity progress is most likely to occur in the consumer vehicle market, spurred on by 5G which will account for 23% of automotive cellular connections globally in four years’ time. Key to this growth is the high speed and low-latency capabilities of 5G, which are seen as transformative to these goals, requiring effective collaborations between automakers and operators to realize them.

In contrast, Juniper Research predicts that connected commercial vehicles will continue to lag behind their consumer counterparts. Only 20% of connected vehicles will be commercial globally, representing a small increase from 16% by the end of 2023. However, the research firm’s report finds that there will be 376 million units globally of connected vehicles in 2027, up from 182 million vehicles in 2023. The research firm says that most of this growth (91%) is being driven by the advancement of both ADAS and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

Not leveraging connectivity

Juniper finds that the commercial vehicle design is not “leveraging connectivity beyond simple emergency call features and basic connected infotainment systems, although this is changing, as businesses prioritize tracking and logistics capabilities”.

“Accordingly, the research recommended that automotive OEMs prioritize integrations with common fleet tracking systems out of the factory to maximize the benefits of connectivity, and to enable commercial fleet owners to maximize efficiency in their processes.” Nick Maynard, its head of research, says there are numerous reasons why connected commercial vehicles are falling behind. Firstly, connectivity in the consumer vehicle market is very much centered on offering superior infotainment experiences. This is not a priority in the commercial vehicle market. Infotainment and interior design therefore lag behind consumer vehicles.

He adds: “Additionally, consumer vehicles have seen a lot of focus on ADAS features, which hasn’t been as strong within the commercial space, except in the larger trucks and lorries market. Part of this is also that it is fairly easy to do key commercial use cases, such as asset tracking and route planning with existing 4G networks.”

Move in vehicle architecture

Chris Mash, vice-president of business development at Ethernovia adds that there is also the move in vehicle architecture towards central compute. Automakers are trying to reduce the complexity of their vehicles to allow them to consolidate their ECUs and they are looking to add features.

Many vehicles are, therefore, being designed with domain-based architectures, which creates complex wiring and software. The rest of the network is traditional, including ethernet, and yet it leaves the question about how the next generation of ethernet will enable simplicity and add authentication features.

To read the complete article, visit TU-Automotive.