Widespread availability of 5G wireless network access will be the key that enables and fuels growth in autonomous vehicle adoption, according to a new driverless car forecast from ABI Research. Autonomous, or driverless, cars will account for 3 million of the 67 million 5G vehicle subscriptions ABI forecasts come 2025.
Widespread access to 5G wireless broadband networks will enable industry participants to gather huge amounts of data from automotive sensors and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) connections, ABI points out. Connecting to cloud platforms, 5G connections will enable broadband media streaming and cloud-based vehicle life-cycle management services to vehicle owners.
Driverless Car Forecast
“V2X is a key requirement for the connected and autonomous vehicle of the future,” commented Dominique Bonte, ABI Research Managing Director and VP in a press release about the ABI driverless car forecast.
“It is closely linked to the concept of cooperative mobility, allowing vehicles to exchange both status and event information with each other via reliable, low-latency communication technologies. With it, vehicles can be proactive and capture and share critical events happening locally with each other, ultimately ensuring safer driving practices.”
Automotive industry participants first need to expand the scope and degree to which they make use of 5G connectivity in a new generation of connected cars, trucks and other modes of transportation, ABI continues.
The market research provider expects this will be realized from this year out to 2025. By 2025, ABI expects industry players to be able to provide value-added services to the mainstream market and craft new business models to better position themselves within the industry ecosystem. In that scenario, telecom providers play a much greater role than they do today.
“[T]he question is not so much if, but when the industry will embrace the disruptive approach,” Bonte added.
“While right now, the industry is leveraging and upgrading current LTE/4G networks, it will eventually build new RAN networks based on millimeter waves. Once this happens, starting from the second half of the next decade, very low-latency capabilities will be achievable and V2X-enabled smart mobility applications will be possible.”
