ADAS: Rebirth for the automotive industry

“The production of vehicles will be heavily impacted by the coronavirus crisis,” said Pierrick Boulay, Technology & Market Analyst, Solid-state Lighting at Yole Développement (Yole). “It is expected that three years will be needed to recover and get back to the same level of output.”

In this context, the market research & strategy consulting company Yole releases today the Sensing and Computing for ADAS vehicle 2020 report.

Under this new report, Yole’s experts have been investigating the industry in order to describe and provide market data on key sensors: Camera, LiDAR and Radar, including revenue forecast and volume shipments for each sensor type, market shares, with detailed breakdown by player and application focus of each sensor.

This report points out an in-depth understanding of the main sensors value chains, infrastructure and players. It also presents key technical insights and analysis regarding future technology trends and challenges, and offers a deep understanding of how these sensors work together in a car.

Which strategy will be used to restart the industry after the COVID-19 crisis? Who are the sensor players and how they are related? What is the supply chain of these sensors? Yole’s analysts have shed light on the Sensing and Computing for ADAS vehicles sector.

The automotive industry has seen the impact of the coronavirus crisis evolve from a supply shock to a global demand shock. The production of new cars is expected to decline by 30% compared to the 2019 production level. The direction of the automotive industry towards the four major megatrends of connected, autonomous, shared and electric driving is expected to remain unchanged going forward. However, the speed of adoption might change due to the emergency. Electrification will be the main focus for OEM s as restrictions and associated penalties on CO2 emissions should remain valid.

The second target for OEMs will be related to the development of ADAS for safety and automated driving features. The development of AEB is a great step to avoid forward collisions but is still perfectible, as demonstrated by the AAA in October 2019. Automated driving features in traffic jams or on the highway will also be developed by OEMs as consumers are looking for these to ease driving. The development of such features will be a way for OEMs to differentiate themselves. To do so, the addition of more sensors, more computing power and a new E/E architecture will be required.

Cédric Malaquin, Technology & Market Analyst, RF Devices & Technology from Yole commented: “Audi and Tesla, have both initiated this trend using a combination of radars, cameras and a LiDAR in Audi’s case. To fuse the data generated, Audi and Aptiv developed a domain controller, the zFAS, for front sensors. Tesla goes one step further in the development of domain controllers with its Autopilot hardware. Autopilot is much more complex and has more functionality, with the ability to perform frequent OTA software updates”.

With high penetration rates of radars and cameras in cars, the associated market revenues will recover rapidly from the coronavirus crisis.

According to Pierrick Boulay from Yole: “Radar market revenue is expected to surpass 2019’s revenue in 2021 and will reach US$9.1 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 19%. Camera market revenue will also surpass 2019’s revenue in 2021 and will reach US$8.1 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 18%. Market revenue from computing ADAS is expected to reach US$3.6 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 21%.”

LiDAR market revenue is quite limited today as only one OEM is implementing this sensor as an option in some of its cars. Other OEMs like BMW and Volvo are expected to follow in coming years, but the implementation will remain limited to high-end vehicles, and therefore limited volumes are expected. In this context, LiDAR market revenue is expected to reach$1.7bn in 2025 at a CAGR of 113%.

LiDAR is a complex sensor for OEMs and Tier-1s to integrate while radars and cameras are, at the same time, continuously improving their performance.

ADAS and the automotive industry will see lot of changes in the coming months and years. Pushed by innovations and the integration of new functions, the market will open the door to attractive opportunities and new players.