• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile

  • CORONAVIRUS
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • REGIONS
    • Asia Pacific
    • Canada
    • China
    • Europe
    • Latin America
    • Middle East/Africa
    • North America
  • THINK TANK
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » Car Makers Are Reinventing the Wheel to Keep Up With Robocars

Car Makers Are Reinventing the Wheel to Keep Up With Robocars

Car Makers Are Reinventing the Wheel to Keep Up With Robocars
July 15, 2019
Bloomberg

The car industry is reinventing the wheel to prepare for autonomous vehicles.

Japan’s Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd., whose roots stretch back to when Henry Ford was building his Model T, is developing a “smart tire” that can monitor its own air pressure and temperature, and eventually respond by itself to changes in road conditions.

Yet it’s more than just tires that are being changed. Koito Manufacturing Co., AGC Inc. and Lear Corp. are putting semiconductors and sensors inside headlights, glass and seats to make them as intelligent as the cars driving themselves.

Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo LLC, Intel Corp.’s Mobileye NV and Baidu Inc. dominate the core technology for autonomous driving, yet suppliers still count on finding their own space in the business. Parts for advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving are expected to become a $57bn market within a decade, according to BIS Research, and old-school companies born during the early days of the automobile know they must either adapt or risk extinction.

“Autonomous driving is a challenge for carmakers, but it’s a bigger challenge for conventional parts makers,” said Zhou Lei, a partner at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting in Tokyo. “They are striving to become the ‘five senses’ of the vehicle so they can remain relevant.”

Carmakers have disclosed more than $14bn in investments in autonomy and mobility companies since 2010, according to data compiled by BloombergNEF. Toyota Motor Corp. tops that list at about $3bn.

Taking Over

Though the deployment of highly autonomous commercial fleets isn’t expected to begin until at least 2022, the looming threat is that the increasingly sophisticated designs of those cars will render some ordinary parts –- and their suppliers -- unnecessary.

For example, why would a self-driving vehicle that uses cameras, lasers and sensors to get around need headlights or mirrors?

Smart Headlights

The response from century-old Koito Manufacturing is to reinvent the headlight. The Tokyo-based company, which traces its roots to making lenses for railway signal lamps in 1912, is adding sensors and artificial-intelligence chips to lamps it plans to introduce by about 2025.

Positioned on the four edges of the vehicle, the lamps will be able to process information and react, such as by illuminating poorly lit crossings, signaling pedestrians that it’s safe to cross and raising an alarm to surrounding drivers by flashing a specific color.

The company’s current customers include Toyota, Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Autonomous driving will change the role of lamps,” said Yuji Yokoya, who recently retired as executive vice president of the Tokyo-based company. “We see them not just as lamps, but more as corner modules.”

Tokyo-based automotive glass-maker AGC is re-imagining that product and making it part of a vehicle’s communication system.

Window Antennas

The company, founded in 1907 as Asahi Glass Co. Ltd., is designing windows with built-in antennas for 5G wireless connections, allowing cars to send and receive signals with other vehicles and infrastructure. AGC’s customers include Toyota, Tesla Inc. and Sony Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

An overarching challenge is to convince carmakers that the smarter -- and more expensive -- components make economic sense. Not all parts manufacturers need a radical transformation to keep up with autonomous and electric vehicles since they’ve been evolving gradually as the industry takes shape, said Deepesh Rathore, an independent automobile analyst based in Bengaluru.

“A car is a car, and the shape of the tire doesn’t change,” Rathore said. “I can imagine some of those companies having to reinvent everything -- especially those working with engines and gearbox technologies.”

Even components that aren’t facing an immediate existential threat are evolving. Sumitomo Rubber is researching tires that can transmit data about road conditions to the car as well as to other vehicles.

Smart Tires & Seats

The next step will be a tire that automatically adapts to road conditions. When the tire detects water, it will change the structure of its surface into one that is optimal for wet roads, said Kozaburo Nakaseko, an official in the research and development division of Sumitomo.

“Tires need to become smarter,” Nakaseko said. “We cannot move into an autonomous car society without information about the roads we drive on.”

The innovations aren’t just limited to Japan. In the U.S., Lear Corp. is equipping its car seats with biometric sensors to detect stress, drowsiness and changes in heart rate, and then activate treatments in response. The seats also can transmit data to a doctor or family member if necessary, the company said.

Other functions include controls that let users create individual “micro-climates” where they are sitting, and noise-canceling features in the headrests, the Southfield, Michigan-based company said.

“All the mechanical stuff will just slowly go away, and there is a lot of electronics coming in instead,” said Egil Juliussen, principal auto analyst with IHS Markit. “You have to change in order to survive.”

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Technology Sourcing/Procurement/SRM Artificial Intelligence Automotive Industrial Manufacturing
KEYWORDS Automotive
  • Related Articles

    Canada Firms Are Importing Workers to Keep Up With Marijuana Demand

    Global Manufacturers Are Straining to Keep Up With Faster Economy

    As Car Sales Zoom, Automotive Supply Chains Race to Keep Up

  • Related Events

    How Every Shipper Can Benefit from Modern Drop-and-Hook: Four ways to get nationwide, flexible, and quality drop capacity with unparalleled visibility

Bloomberg

As Retail Sales Improved, Inventories Rose Less in February Than Expected

More from this author

Wake up to Coronavirus Updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • Coronavirus-watch-Armada

    Virus Update: Biden Unveils National Strategy; Pfizer Says It’s Willing to Sell Vaccine to States

    Coronavirus
  • Car Industry

    A Year of Poor Planning Led to Carmakers’ Massive Chip Shortage

    Technology
  • Can Employers Require Employees to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Part 1

    Watch: Can Employers Require Employees to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Part 1

    Coronavirus
  • U.S. Vaccine Rollout Hindered by Faulty Coordination, Messaging

    WHO Fumes at Western Drugmakers As China Fills Vaccine Void

    Coronavirus
  • COVID-19 Vaccine

    Vaccine Disparities Raise Alarm as COVID-19 Variants Multiply

    Coronavirus

Digital Edition

Scb home issue 27

2020 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • LSP Saves Customer $1.5 Million a Year With MPO Global Inbound Management

  • Auto Supplier Wows Key Client Using riskmethods Supply Chain Savvy

  • Integrating Shipping and Compliance Saves Conglomerate Millions

  • How a Consumer Goods Giant Upped Its On-Time Delivery Performance

  • LSP Wows Global Client, Quickly Advances to Become End-to-End Provider

Visit Our Sponsors

6 River Systems ArcBest Armada
aThingz BluJay Burris Logistics
DSC Logistics DCSA (Digital Container Shipping Association) DHL Resilience360
Genpact GEP Honeywell Intelligrated
Infor Logility Magnitude Software
MPO Old Dominion Oliver Wight
OpenSky Ports America Purolator
QAD Precision Red Classic Riskmethods
TGW Systems Transportation Insights Watson Land Company
Westfalia Technologies Workjam Yang Ming
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright © 2016 - 2018 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing