5G is coming… Is it time to change your car?
At auto shows, have you noticed how every auto manufacturer likes to slap labels on their products? The reason is simple: they are highlighting each car’s must-have key selling point, which is an indirect and none-too-subtle way of telling you – it’s time to change your car!
At the 2018 Auto Shanghai, if you asked anyone what the hot topic was, they would have all given you the same answer – “the 5G car”. A quick search on the Internet will yield news of numerous partnerships between auto manufacturers, telecom operators and equipment manufacturers to jointly promote 5G cars. It makes you wonder – is this a car show or a telecom show?
It’s not a coincidence that even more car vendors appeared at the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona. For example, Geely announced its plans for mass production of 5G cars at the MWC this year. In fact, the crossover between the communications and gained momentum.
When cars meet 5G
It’s a simple concept. To date, 2G/3G/4G has concretized the connections between people anytime and anywhere. Mission accomplished. However, the more ambitious mission of 5G is the Internet of Everything (IoE), which in the blink of an eye has increased the scale of the Internet exponentially. Cars are one of the most important objects in our lives – it is inevitable that they will be affected by 5G. To seamlessly integrate its technology into the automotive industry, 5G has evolved features such as fast speed (50 to 100 times faster than 4G), shortened delay (down to a millisecond), and wider connection (it can support 1 million devices within a square kilometer). Since cars have always sought to be ‘networked’, 5G represents an offer that is too good to refuse.
On the other hand, today’s cars are also changing. No longer a simple means of transportation, they are achieving customization through electrification, smartification, connectivity and sharing. These are the new Four Pillars of Modernization for cars, all of which are based on data. According to Intel’s estimates, driverless cars will consume 0.75 GB of data per second in the future, and will use about 4,000 GB of data per day. This means that future cars will not only consume oil (or electricity), but also data. The consumption of data will affect the experience of car users, and even positively impact safety. Thus, it is no exaggeration to say that the car of the future is a moving data center. Everyone knows that only connectivity can maximize the value of the data. 5G just so happens to provide the ideal connection channel. Although the concept of car connectivity surfaced long before 5G, people have come to realize that 5G is the ultimate solution for the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). Clearly, cars and 5G are made for each other. Integration is only a matter of time.
There is another reason why people are so eager to embrace the union of “car +5G”. The more ambitious mission of 5G has rendered the previous 2G/3G/4G business models obsolete. The traditional telecom industry urgently needs to develop new application scenarios and streams of revenue from IoE. At the same time, players from outside the telecom industry, including auto companies, also want to get a slice of the pie before the value chain is firmly established. This is also a motivating factor for potential investors in 5G cars. At the 2019 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, Miao Wei, Minister of Industry & Information Technology of the Chinese government, asserted that “… the driverless car may be the earliest application scenario for 5G technology, and the IoV may be the largest application market of 5G.” It couldn’t have been said any better.
In short, industry demands, government endorsements and corporate efforts have jointly contributed to the current demand for 5G cars.
The changing shape of the car
Although there have been a lot of discussions and speculations about the changing form of automotive products in the 5G era, it is useful to reflect on some important developments, some of them subversive.
Autonomous driving
Current talk of autonomous driving usually refers to driverless single vehicles. These consist in intelligent control via a closed loop that is completed locally through a series of sensing, decision-making and execution technologies. However, true autonomous driving needs to seamlessly integrate intelligence from single vehicles and the IoV, based on vehicle to everything (V2X). This will allow vehicles to share information with transportation infrastructure, other vehicles and pedestrians, to ensure quick and correct judgments and actions.
One of the biggest obstacles in concretizing V2X based on cellular mobile networks (cellular V2X, C-V2X) has been network latency. For example, the delay of LTE-based V2X is 50-100 milliseconds, which means that the braking distance during high-speed driving is measured in meters. In theory, 5G can achieve a delay of 1 millisecond, which means that the braking distance can be reduced to centimeters. This capability of 5G will totally fulfill this crucial requirement of autonomous driving. Backed by industry organizations such as the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), the widespread commercialization of 5G-based V2X is only a matter of time.
In-vehicle infotainment
Infotainment systems are probably the first car components that required Internet access. With the advent of 5G, people may appreciate the value of 5G first and foremost by their ability to download HD movies from their cars in seconds. However, 5G-enabled possibilities can do much more than that. The integration of the following functions will dramatically transform the in-vehicle infotainment system of the future:
• Multi-display will become the norm in in-vehicle infotainment systems. Once autonomous driving frees the user’s hands
and eyes, enjoying the content enabled by 5G will be everyone’s favorite way to spend time in the car.
• 5G will enable VR/AR and other applications that use large amounts of data to access vehicles. Just imagine the possibilities
this will bring in the future…
• AI applications such as voice assistants will pervade the in-vehicle experience, and the cloud push service for cars will
become more seamless.
• High-definition maps and navigation will become a reality, and each car could even contribut to map data by transmitting
real-time traffic data to the cloud through 5G.
Vehicle maintenance
Some say that 4S stores will go out of business because of 5G. Although this may sound far-fetched, there is some logic behind that prophesy. For example, in-vehicle sensors can record the operation of each key component of the vehicle and transmit the data to the 4S stores or service garages for monitoring and analysis through 5G. The maintenance and repair of vehicles will be carried out on demand instead of being determined by mileage and timing as it is today. For 5G-based IoT, the relationship between users, service garages, and after-sales service providers will be redefined, and the business model with which we are familiar will no doubt undergo changes.
Let’s stretch our imagination… Imagine if a vehicle’s data can be shared over a wider network with 5G, say with insurance companies. This would profoundly impact the product design, sales, inspection, claims, and other service processes in the auto insurance industry. In fact, this is exactly what many insurance technology companies are currently focusing on.
Let’s think about the next step. Will you really need your own car in the future? 5G will push ride-sharing a step further. The car, having slowly and steadily evolved over a century of history, is about to enter a period of intensive change.
According to statistics, by 2035, 5G will have created more than US$2.4 trillion of revenue for the automotive industry, supply chain, and customers, accounting for one-fifth of the expected 5G global economic impact. It is an indisputable fact – 5G will change the car. 5G is coming and there’s no stopping it.
Once you’ve got your hands on a 5G mobile phone, maybe it’s time to trade up to a 5G car?
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