The CE market is playing a significant role in development of autonomous driving technologies, reported Futuresource analyst Mike Fisher Friday. “The car is the next entertainment and communications battleground,” Fisher said, and as the technologies become commoditized, CE technology is being used to differentiate car makers’ products through entertainment and productivity enhancements, Fisher said. The automotive market could be a significant revenue driver for many CE players as a result. The worldwide passenger car market is expected to reach 85 million vehicles this year, growing to more than 100 million shipments in 2025, with most of that growth to be driven by developing nations, but markets including the U.S., U.K. and Western Europe, having reached a saturation point, “show significant opportunities for high-tech autonomous driving and in car entertainment systems,” he said. Amazon, Apple and Google -- with expertise in artificial intelligence -- have the chance to “dive deeper into vehicle ecosystems, enabling passengers to bring their digital lives inside the car,” said Fisher, citing personal virtual assistants, and personalization using AI and facial recognition. Fuel and parking payments, toll payments and postal deliveries to vehicles “will all become commonplace, together with more targeted retail and e-commerce services,” he said. By 2020, the first advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) Level 4 vehicles will allow the driver to be completely distracted by other tasks in most driving scenarios, said the researcher. He referenced concepts shown by Mercedes, Hyundai and Toyota, and 3D holographic virtual assistants demo'd by BMW.

SiriusXM bought PayTollo, a GPS mobile payment platform, said SiriusXM Thursday. It adds transportation tolling to Sirius unit's Automatic offerings, said Joe Verbrugge, the parent's general manager-emerging business. The company offers an install-it-yourself adapter and mobile app that enables most vehicles to become connected so drivers have access to services including crash alerts, roadside assistance, real-time vehicle location monitoring and sharing, vehicle performance monitoring, recall notifications and service reminders. PayTollo's mobile payment platform for tolls and bridges is used in California and Florida.

AT&T exclusively will offer the Harman Spark connected car device starting this week at $79.99 under a variety of rate plans. Under a limited-time offer, those who buy a Samsung Galaxy S9, S9+ or Note9 smartphone can get a Spark for $29.99, the carrier said. The Spark works on cars 1996 and newer to deliver connectivity features including emergency crash assistance, roadside assistance manager, geofencing and a Wi-Fi hot spot.

Traffic & Parking Control Co. bowed a connected vehicle interface at the ITE annual meeting in Minneapolis Monday that will enable existing AC and solar-powered TAPCO intelligent warning systems to integrate with connected vehicle-ready infrastructure, it said. The interface communicates with smart city roadside units to relay warning system activation data to connected vehicles via dedicated short-range communication, 4G or 5G networks, to provide drivers with instant in-vehicle alerts, said the company. The interface transfers system data through integration with local advanced traffic management systems providing officials with activation trends, status and actionable insight into connected systems, it said.

Autobrain announced a connected car device designed for driver safety and access. Autobrain, which fits into a car’s diagnostic port, offers access to services including “near real-time” vehicle location, 24/7 roadside assistance, emergency crash response and vehicle diagnostics with a mechanic helpline, said the company. The $19.97 device, selling at Amazon, Jet and Walmart, has a $9.97 monthly access fee and is available exclusively on the AT&T 4G LTE network, it said.

Toyota backed more testing to determine if Wi-Fi can safely share the 5.9 GHz band with dedicated short-range communications systems. Representatives met with Chief Julius Knapp and others from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. “The DSRC announcement by Toyota, the recent announcement by General Motors to further expand its DSRC deployment in the United States, and significant investments in DSRC-enabled infrastructure in a majority of states proves that DSRC deployment in the United States continues,” said a Monday filing in docket 13-49. “There are important interference scenarios that have not yet been tested during the first phase of testing.”

Voxx Automotive partnered with UniKey Technologies to bring keyless products and vehicle access systems to the automotive market, said the companies Thursday. Voxx brings its phone-as-a-key technology that lets drivers use a smartphone as a key fob; UniKey’s contributions are Bluetooth location capability, communications and secure cloud services expertise, and a digital key sharing platform. The companies received a contract from an electric vehicle maker for a keyless solution to be delivered next year, they said. Target use cases are family key-sharing and car-sharing services and similar uses by car rental firms and auto fleet operators.

The need for an active and charged mobile device and a reliable mobile connection are “fundamental disadvantages” to keyless cars even as industry stakeholders are under pressure to validate the concept, reported Strategy Analytics Tuesday. Consumer demand is light for keyless technology and obstacles will limit broader acceptance, said analyst Derek Viita. OEMs working on future model lines targeted to younger, tech-savvy consumers should explore the technology, said analyst Chris Schreiner, with “caution among wider portfolios for the near term.”

Smart vehicle company Byton licensed BlackBerry's QNX SDP 7.0 real-time operating system and Hypervisor 2.0 software for its first series of production vehicles, said the companies Thursday. Byton chose BlackBerry's technology for its ability to partition and isolate safety-critical systems from non-safety critical systems, said the car company. Byton plans to launch its M-Byte Level 3 and sports utility vehicle in China next year, followed by the U.S. and Europe in 2020, it said last week at CES Asia in Shanghai (see 1806150004 or 1806140002). BlackBerry's QNX software is embedded in more than 120 million cars, it said.

The aftermarket advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) market is $1.5 billion today, said John Waraniak, Specialty Equipment Market Association vice president-vehicle technology, on a Society of Automotive Engineering panel at CE Week Wednesday, and it could jump to $6 billion in the next few years. That compares with $8 billion for the OEM ADAS market today. Among the ADAS technologies presenting a “huge opportunity” for resellers are collision, blind-spot and rear cross-traffic alert warning systems, he said. Those technologies come bundled with as few as 20 percent of systems from the factory, Waraniak said, leaving plenty of room for independent retailers to add those capabilities to their portfolio. On integrating those technologies into existing vehicles, Ted Cardenas, marketing vice president for Pioneer’s car electronics division, said the dashboard has evolved over the years and most new cars with integrated systems make it more challenging to integrate advanced functionality. But Pioneer is still confident the aftermarket has potential, with the average age of vehicles on the road today being 11 years. With the smartphone evolving “about every four months,” Cardenas said Pioneer is focusing on developing an interface that can tie technologies together in the vehicle, “and it might not even be a smartphone,” he said. For safety systems such as lane departure and blind-spot warning technology, “how those things are installed” in the aftermarket is "going to be very important," he said. The next step is ensuring the installer can provide as skilled an installation as the functionality coming from OEM vehicles. Voxx has been holding dealer training sessions toward that end, said Joe Caltabiano, senior business development manager-mobile entertainment, including social media training videos. An installer who wants instruction on removing a grille to install a camera can look at a “step-by-step video,” he said. Wheel and tire sensors will be an area of opportunity for aftermarket customization, said SEMA's Waraniak, citing “sensor fusion.” As wheels and tires “get smarter,” they will be connected to the vehicle and integrate with the ADAS systems, creating new opportunities for installers, he said. “It’s all about disruption,” Waraniak said. “You’re creating a need that no one has really asked for,” creating solutions consumers didn’t know they needed but will gravitate toward, he said. Historically, those solutions come from the aftermarket, he said. Waraniak projected the aftermarket five years from now will be more personalized to individual car owners. Rather than solutions driven by some, and offered to many, in five years “it will be about you.”