The entire automotive industry is focused on the subject: making cars increasingly connected with the surrounding world. With the current generation of Audi A8, unveiled in autumn 2017, the Volkswagen Group wrote a small yet significant page in automotive history: it brought level 3 assisted driving to the road for the first time in the world — the most advanced level currently available, as we shall see later. No small achievement, one that certifies the importance of research and new technologies (connected cars) within the German giant. Connected cars, indeed. But what does this definition actually mean?

From assisted driving to restaurant reservations

Once upon a time — and very often still today — the car was a relatively simple mechanical device, characterised by four fundamental aspects: the ability to carry 4/5 people (in most cases), fossil fuel propulsion, individual ownership, and driving responsibility entrusted to people. But the future scenario is already written: in 20 or 30 years, vehicles will be smaller, almost exclusively electric, shared in ownership, and capable of autonomous driving.

For some time now, however, an important transformation has been under way: vehicles have become connected. You can, for example, book a restaurant from the car, or set the interior temperature before you even get in. Moreover, connected cars offer driver assistance devices that make it possible to avoid an accident or reduce its consequences; they are equipped with a black box to transmit data in the event of a collision, or with an integrated SIM card. Or, more simply, they can be connected to external devices such as smartphones via Bluetooth.

The connected car and the services business

The subject of automotive transformation was addressed in the study "Connected Car & Mobility: un nuovo inizio", produced by the Osservatorio smart & connected cars, which was itself promoted by the School of Management del Politecnico di Milano. The focus of this study, as one might expect, was placed on the economic side. In 2019, the market share of so-called connected cars grew by 14 per cent (for a total of 16.7 million vehicles, or 42 per cent of the vehicles in circulation), equivalent to a value of 1.2 billion euros. One of the most interesting aspects of connected cars, from a business perspective, is that they offer profit margins where none existed before: it is no coincidence that sharing services and pay-per-use models are increasingly discussed, with the monthly vehicle rental fee varying according to actual usage and the take-up of ancillary services.

Strategic agreements to develop new hardware

Even before the (automatic, via a profile "stored" on the cloud) payment for services, a platform is needed to make all of this work. And here lies another business opportunity: on-board electronic components — both in qualitative and quantitative terms — are increasingly pushing car manufacturers, including the Volkswagen Group, to forge strategic partnerships and acquire start-ups.

Safety first

Let us now return to the aspect we started with: assisted driving. It is a complex technology that can be broken down into 6 levels. Before continuing, however, it is worth specifying one fundamental point: the driving assistance levels for a car — from 0 to 5 — are established by the Sae, the global association whose membership includes almost 130,000 engineers and technicians working in automotive and aerospace technology.

The 5 levels of vehicle autonomous driving

• Level 0: everything is in the driver's hands. This category also includes cars equipped with ABS and ESP: extremely important systems that can save lives, but which intervene after the fact, to correct or prevent situations that are already critical in terms of grip or stability.
• Level 1: single automation (accelerator or steering). The system can intervene autonomously, either on the steering or on the accelerator.
• Level 2: multiple automation (accelerator and steering). The system can intervene autonomously on both the steering and the accelerator.
• Level 3: conditional autonomous driving (assists the human). The system is capable of carrying out — autonomously — complex manoeuvres such as actively responding to events (sudden obstacles, changes in direction by nearby vehicles), turning and changing lane. The driver must remain ready to intervene (hands must always stay on the wheel) should the system require it.
• Level 4: selective autonomous driving (can replace the human). The system is capable of carrying out — autonomously — complex manoeuvres such as actively responding to events (sudden obstacles, changes in direction by nearby vehicles), turning and changing lane. The driver could be "bypassed" should they fail to respond to a request to intervene.
• Level 5: autonomous driving (replaces the human). The car is 100 per cent managed by the computer. It not only decides what to do on the road, but also knows where to go (unless otherwise instructed by a human, of course).

The importance of infrastructure

To sustain a level of complexity such as that required by level 5, development that also encompasses infrastructure is indispensable: roads, junctions, traffic lights, car parks. Specifically, there must be communication between individual cars and the surrounding environment — the so-called V2X.

The technologies currently available are based on the Etsi Its-G5 standard (which uses Wi-Fi services) and on the C-V2X cellular technology (currently based on 4G networks but evolving towards 5G). Current performance, however, is not sufficient to enable services such as those needed to make autonomous driving work.

Autonomous driving, the situation in Italy

What has been described so far may still seem very far from reality. Anas, the Azienda nazionale autonoma delle strade, "intends to make 3,000 kilometres of Italian roads into smart roads, to allow the vehicles travelling on them to communicate with each other and with infrastructure. Already by the end of 2019, 36 per cent of Italian municipalities with more than 25,000 inhabitants had launched at least one smart mobility project in the preceding three years, while another 39 per cent had already done so before 2017. If municipalities with more than 80,000 inhabitants are considered instead, only 9 per cent have yet to launch similar projects.

The goals of technological progress

All the resources committed to developing the technologies described so far, as well as representing investments in business terms, are the premise for an increasingly sustainable and safe form of mobility — one that takes environmental aspects ever more into account through systems capable of offering people new services and higher levels of road safety. All that remains is to wait: within a few years we will see how the connected car transforms habits and cities.