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Automobiles are
another important market for many industry companies,to keep getting better.
"At the beginning of this decade, electronics accounted for about 18% per vehicle, which is how GM expresses its use of vehicles," including information and entertainment systems, says Patrick Popp, director of General Motors' Electronic Controls & Laboratory. "We estimate that between 2010 and 2015, electronics-double to 40% of the value of our vehicles." include hybrids, which would make the number for electronics up to three times the amount of electronics found in cars, according to Strategy Analytics, a research and course, there are far fewer hybrid vehicles on the road, growing. Strategy Analytics says there were 335,000 the road in 2005 and it expects this to grow to more 2013, representing 4% of worldwide vehicle production.
Most examples of emerging technologies for vehicles are familiar, such as GPS. The OnStar two-way wireless communications system, introduced in 1995, is now standard on all GM vehicles. But it now comes with some new wrinkles, like reminding owners about scheduled vehicle maintenance and outstanding recall notices.
Other high-end, high-tech features include head-up displays in Corvettes, a vehicle dynamics integrated management system that monitors data from a variety of on-board systems to anticipate problems (available from Lexus), and an intelligent parking assist system (an option on Japanese-market Toyota Priuses).
"In the past, a lot of our development was chip-driven," says Popp. "Today, we take more of a systems approach. To do that, we need two things. We need open standards and open architectures, and we need clearly defined development processes, especially very professionally designed software."
Chip manufacturers are in a particularly good position, not only today, but down the road. Technology Forecasters predicts the automotive chip market will hit $25 billion by 2009. TF also sees a growing opportunity for electronics manufacturing services (EMS)—contract manufacturers—to break into the auto electronics market if they can meet the exacting standards set by automakers. That means zero defects.
According to TF, EMS firms already are stepping up their efforts to make a bigger dent in the auto market (it's now at about 11%), driven by the rapid growth in the electronics content of automobiles and an increasing acceptance of outsourcing by the auto industry (Fig. 2).