The Biggest Automotive Trends According to Industry Experts
We spend a lot of time in cars—at times more than expected when traffic, weather, and other road conditions are factored in. That’s why it’s so important that our experience on the road is both comfortable and safe. Transportation accidents happen every day, making it particularly beneficial for all when extra safety measures are implemented into vehicles. With the evolution of AI in automotive, roads are safer than ever for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians alike.
Our 8th annual State of AI and Machine Learning Report covered current AI trends and challenges according to business leaders and technologists around the world. For the State of AI Automotive, we took a deep dive into the data to identify trends impacting the automotive industry.
Our three key takeaways touched on:
- Autonomous Vehicles
- In-Cabin Experience
- Vehicle Safety
Autonomous Vehicles are the Future of Transportation
4 in 5 respondents feel safe with autonomous vehicles on the road. Our research shows a strong belief that autonomous vehicles are the future of the automotive industry.
Accidents are inevitable, but with the right measures, they can become preventable. In 2021, The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) reported an estimated 42,915 deaths due to vehicle crashes. The department predicts the improvement of technologies to assist drivers including Automatic Braking Systems, Distracted Driver Alerts, and ADS (autonomous driving systems) will play a significant role in decreasing fatalities.
New cars often feature some level of automation and fall in the L1-L2 range. With recent advances, automation is now common with lane centering assistance, cruise control, and pedestrian recognition. By 2024 cars in the L4 category will become commonplace.
In-Cabin Experience Elevated with Voice Assistance
Data Collection is leading the innovation for passenger comfort, safety, and personalization. Gone are the days of hard bucket seats and poor insulation. With recent advances, each passenger’s experience in a vehicle can be fully customized for maximum luxury.
Voice assistants aren’t just for phones or smart speakers. They’ve been implemented into vehicles and function the same way as they do on your phone. In 2021, more than 127 million users in the US actively used voice assistants in their car. Streaming music, placing calls, providing navigation help, and adjusting temperature are just some of the tasks these virtual assistants are capable of. Around the world, adoption is on the rise with 27 million voice assistance users in Germany and 19 million in the UK.
Safety Regulations
It’s important to recognize that, even with all this AI and automation, human-in-the-loop continues to play an important role in passenger safety.
Numerous laws are being passed requiring vehicles to adhere to certain safety standards. One law announced by the European Commission mandates Advanced Driver Assistant Systems (ADAS) in vehicles to improve road safety and better protect passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists. The commission is hopeful this new measure can save 25,000 lives and prevent 140,000 serious injuries by 2038. To reach this goal, ADAS has implemented several safety-critical applications for drivers including blind spot detection, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, object or pedestrian detection, and traffic sign recognition. These applications benefit both those in the vehicle and nearby pedestrians.
With the risk of driver and passenger safety, technology implemented into vehicles can’t afford to malfunction. Leveraging human-in-the-loop (HITL) model testing ensures features drivers use will help them stay safe on the road. HITL is a section of AI utilizing both humans and machines to create ML models. Humans give direct feedback to a model for predictions delivered below a certain confidence level. This turns into a continuous feedback loop making the algorithm robust and produce more confident predictions. In fact, 97% of our experts surveyed agreed that human-in-the-loop evaluation is important for accurate model performance.
Transportation is essential in our daily lives. With the increase of AI implementation in vehicles, safety and comfort are being transformed to new levels through autonomous vehicles, in-cabin personalization, and improved safety features. In our study, we found most consumers agree the benefits AI creates makes for a promising future for transportation.
To learn more about the automotive industry trends read our new report State of AI and Machine Learning for Automotive 2023.