January is a time when everyone makes plans and here at Pilkington Automotive we are looking forward to the Car of the Future.
The well-known trend towards automated driving, taking control with ADAS cameras, will continue at a steady pace, if not quite as quickly as predicted in the past. We see the most important cameras and sensors staying on the windscreen, with calibration becoming a bigger part of our lives in the glass replacement business. At the same time, more is being done for us as the human driver, especially in the way information is communicated through voice and displays. Increasingly, the display will shift to the windscreen as Augmented Reality helps point out what we see and where we want to go in ways that we are just starting to realize. Artificial intelligence will understand our individual choices and predict what we do next, which could end up telling us how to improve and eventually taking over control of the vehicle. The growth of electric power for cars has been slower than forecast recently, but is still expected to continue. Battery constructions will change, and eventually, vehicle range will stop being the nervous discussion that it is today. The result will be a vehicle repair industry that is smaller, with fewer components to replace and more focused on software. However, the recycling industry will be more complex as the painful task of recovering the contents of lithium-ion batteries becomes critical for the next generation. Perhaps most surprisingly, the average car of the future will be older as our chosen vehicles become longer-lasting and more expensive to buy. The good news is that we see the windscreen growing in importance for automated driver assistance, driver information, and car user experience. As a result, the automotive glass replacement service should grow in value for years to come.
As we step into the New Year, we wish everyone success and look forward to driving innovation together. 😊🚘