You might not have heard about the Department of Transportation's IntelliDrive program, but it holds great promise for a new category of aftermarket retail sales. IntelliDrive refers to equipping light-duty motor vehicles and trucks with dashboard screens, joysticks and other communications technology that provides drivers early voice, screen and touch warnings of a crash, along with other safety-related "heads ups."
Vehicles would be able to communicate with one another, and the infrastructure has already been set aside as the "car talk" channel.
DOT has been working exclusively with OEMs for the past seven years; but DOT officials now realize that crippled OEM sales require them to embrace the aftermarket. Peter Appel, administrator, Research and Innovative Technologies Administration, the part of DOT leading IntelliDrive efforts, explains, "The aftermarket is a very important part of our IntelliDrive strategy. It will help us get to our goal faster."
IntelliDrive is a part of the broader vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) strategy David Strickland, the new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), discussed at the Society of Automotive Engineer's Washington meeting in January. There was a separate panel on IntelliDrive during which John Waraniak, vice president of vehicle technology, Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), discussed the aftermarket's emerging participation, which has slowly revved up over the past year.
Waraniak hopes DOT will give the SEMA-sponsored project additional lift with the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants, funded with $1.5 billion as part of the economic stimulus package. Appel declines to speculate on TIGER grants in the aftermarket.
DOT actually started the intelligent vehicle push seven years ago when it encouraged the auto manufacturers to form the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Coalition (VIIC). OEMs established a test bed, got suppliers involved and finished a proof of concept last summer. But it occurred to manufacturers and DOT that depending exclusively on equipping new cars with IntelliDrive technology would never make a wireless transportation system viable. That realization became even more apparent as new car sales submarined last year below 10 million units.
"Vehicle penetration is critical," explains Dave Henry, Chrysler, V2X program manager at Chrysler and president of the VIIC. "So DOT challenged the consortium to find a way to equip the existing population of automobiles with aftermarket technology."
SEMA jumped into the driver's seat with a vehicle built buy American Expedition Vehicles (AEV) and the Automotive Electronics Connectivity Committee (AECC) — an open forum initiative created to accelerate integration and interooperability of consumer electronic products into automobiles. The AECC Phase I Project Vehicle is based on a 2009 AEV Expedition Package that showcases products, technologies and services provided by the likes of Autonet Mobile internet, Sprint MiFi, Jenson Bluetooth, Mobileye collision warning and Kicker performance amplifier and speakers.
Chrysler's Henry takes great pains, however, to describe SEMA's effort as an attempt to "retrofit" vehicles with wireless technology, meaning the OEMs would have a hand in any technology installations affecting existing vehicle stock. Of course, the aftermarket has sometimes chafed over OEM data control, but in terms of IntelliDrive, Waraniak agrees with Henry.
"An aftermarket company must first demonstrate sufficient credibility and capability, and be 'autheticated' to have access to the vehicle platform architecture and systems," Waraniak states. "Systems cannot be open to just anyone."