Connectivity is the future of everything and it brings along enticing possibilities and prospects for multiple industries. In the automobile industry, connectivity has changed the future and present of smart and smart driving cars. V2X technology, as it’s called, has seen to it that there is a huge amount of investment into V2X products and driverless cars as a whole.
The whole industry of driverless cars would be moot without the existence of vehicle to everything technology and all V2X products like the V2X chipsets implemented. The whole point of this technology is keeping cars connected with other cars and road infrastructure, which forms the basis of safe self-driving cars.
This technology facilitates dependable, fast, legit and consistent communication among road entities.
The types of communication can be divided further into smaller classes depending on who is on the receiving end of said communication. For instance, there is vehicle to pedestrian communication which is the communication between cars and pedestrians.
Advantages
Improved Safety
The very first and most significant advantage takes the form of traffic safety. Imagine a world where all the cars in a traffic system know where all other cars are, know what the weather is like 5 miles ahead, know where there has been an accident, know where there are available parking spots, where there are traffic snarl ups, and so on.
All this is possible with V2X technology. How much safer would the roads be? In fact, if widely and correctly deployed, vehicle to everything technology could take out about 81% of all light vehicle crashes.
Cars as it is have some pretty sweet security features with the advanced driver assist systems vehicle they come with.
Enhanced Situational Awareness
These systems depend on radar or computer vision which are somewhat limited. Here is what I mean: signals for example cannot penetrate other vehicles so cars that are out of your field of vision pretty much remain oblivious to what is going on.
Granted the cars are within the range for effective communication, vehicle to everything delivers crucial information about itself and other vehicles and road entities to other vehicles both within and outside their respective line of sight.
Effective vehicle to everything communication greatly increases situational awareness which allows vehicles to work together and lower the number of accidents in potentially dangerous circumstances.
Challenges Faced
Data Security
In any network that involves sharing of information, security is always an issue. To achieve communication, a direct connection must be established and sometimes maintained.
Here is where the problem comes in: these connections are vulnerable to cyberattacks. This poses a huge threat to driver’s data as well as the vehicle’s resources. Security could be compromised by direct hacking or by simply overloading the systems which messes up or slows down the whole process.
There is a plethora of options for attackers to choose from in terms of points of entry or attacks. Attacks could target traffic infrastructure like traffic lights or cellular providers in the case of C2VX and with all the data involved, it is basically an easy game for hackers – decent ones at that.
As such, all V2X products should come equipped with security software that makes hacking or attempted hacking that much more difficult.
Privacy Issues
The issue of privacy is brought about by the sheer data being shared. Sometimes the data is as sensitive as mobility data and in particular your movement plans which could make your stalker’s job that much easier.
All the data about the vehicles, individuals and their plans potentially stored in one place poses another massive threat. Imagine if someone illegally gained access to that large and sensitive data pool.
General Acceptance
As potentially beneficial as this technology is, its acceptance by potential users as well as manufacturers is another challenge. All the issues surrounding legislation and communication standards make worldwide acceptance very hard.
Investors cannot fully invest and commit to trusting this technology before they wrap their heads around the different use cases, legal issues, and how it can be monetized.
To add to my point, other trending vehicle features like low emission take precedence – we have to protect mother nature, right?
Opportunities V2X Brings
This technology has huge potential in the market. Research had projected a 26% annual growth with figures of about 3 billion being reached in 2022.
The market gap is there to be filled by 3 entities: cellular manufactures, semiconductor manufacturers for the V2X chipsets and of course car makers themselves.