FEATURE STORY
The car audio booths at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas this week were filled with this burgeoning category. And even the Specialty Equipment Manufacturer’s Assn (SEMA) thought it was so important, it held a press conference about it on Wednesday.
We’re talking about Advanced Driver Assistance Systems such as blind spot detection, early crash warning devices and more. Metra introduced 40 new products in the category under iBeam; Crimestopper (Rockford) introduced a completely revamped line of safety products and about a dozen other 12 volt suppliers showed new driver safety cameras, mirrors, heads up displays and more.
SEMA said ADAS products such as blind spot detection, cameras and collision warning will grow from just under $1 billion to $1.5 billion in sales between 2016 and 2021, or about 9 percent annual compound growth.
SEMA Chairman Wade Kawasaki presented new research on ADAS saying “There’s been more change in vehicles in the last 5 years compared to the last 50 years before.” He said, “There’s a terrific opportunity for outfitting the 260 million cars on the road.” And while new cars come with many ADAS products, lower trim level cars still do not include them, he added.
“ADAS is still in its infancy,” said SEMA CEO Chris Kersting, vowing SEMA aims to “spread the word” on ADAS so members can capitalize on the growth.
Blind spot warning is expected to increase by 14 percent compound annual growth through 2021 as is passive forward collision warning. Heads up displays will increase by 12 percent, lane departure warning by 11 percent and passive parking assist by 8 percent, the SEMA study found.
The aftermarket advantage is that its ADAS products provide a lower cost alternative to the expensive OE packages for new cars. Also, the aftermarket can add ADAS to older vehicles. the lower cost than OE factory systems and the ability to add them to older vehicles.
The challenges to the market are that some of the systems have too many annoying false alarms. Also some systems have very low consumer awareness and some require “heavy integration into a vehicle’s existing control systems,” said the report called “SEMA Advanced Vehicle Technology Opportunity Study.”
It added that at this point, more than 40 percent of the car is electronic and “there will be increasing interest in replacing, retrofitting and modifying vehicle electronics systems on all cars.”
