Xesol (
http://www.xesolinnovation.com/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)) is an SME specialized in high-tech solutions for advanced connectivity, telecommunications and smart cities. We search, envision and develop innovative solutions to global societal needs.
The unmet need we identified as a business opportunity in the SMARTCARS project was the market/customer demand for a safer driving and the lack of cost affordable solutions for the great majority of drivers to enjoy the state-of-the-art Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (hereafter referred as ADAS). In view of this opportunity, we began the SMARTCARS project´s a couple of year ago and nowadays we count on a patented prototype (four patents) of the first cost affordable technology for implementation of ADAS in any car manufactured after year 2000. This technology is the one we seek commercially exploiting in the SMARTCARS project.
THE NEED SUSTAINING THE SMARTCARS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Road safety is a mayor societal issue with road accidents being main cause of death in industrial countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the total number of road traffic deaths remains unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year, occupying the 9th position in the list of top leading causes of death in the world. It has been demonstrated that ADAS can contribute reducing fatal road accidents by more than 30%.
ADAS are systems developed to automate, adapt and enhance vehicle systems for safety and better driving. The progress in this field has been enormous from the first ADAS like tire-pressure monitoring, seatbelt warning, door open indicator, etc., to the most recent and advanced features like intelligent speed adaptation, collision avoidance system, blind spot detection, driver monitoring, lane change assistance, etc. This impressive ADAS progress can be explained by the actual demand for improved road safety, which has even justified Regulatory actions for their mandatory implementation (e.g. Safety Regulation 661/2009/EU in 2009).
However, in spite of the huge progress so far, relatively few vehicles on the road today have these advanced ADAS systems, and their share of the market is growing at only 2 to 5% annually. This can be explained because ADAS are solutions offered as embedded technologies (integrated in the cars by car manufacturers, OEMs), so drivers can only enjoy the state-of-the-art ADAS when purchasing a new vehicle (10-15 years vehicle replacement rate) and only of the premium/high price segments (>25.000€). However, the great majority of people (70% of all cars registered in Europe each year ) opt for a low-medium price car (6.000-20.000€). Therefore, the great majority of population do not enjoy the most advanced ADAS either because they cannot afford it or because they acquired their current vehicle a few years ago and they are still paying for it or do not consider purchasing a new one.
THE SMARTCARS SOLUTION & EXPECTED IMPACT
SMARTCARS will bring to the market a cost affordable solution for making the most advanced ADAS accessible to any car owner, without the need of purchasing a new vehicle and regardless the price segment of the vehicle they own and/or acquire. Our patented technology is not an embedded system but an external hardware that can be easily integrated to any car manufactured after year 2000 by a simple USB connection. The uniqueness of our technology compared with competing products, is that SMARTCARS is the only not-embedded ADAS capable of triggering automatic vehicle responses (e.g. automatic speed adaptation with no need for user interaction), which are required as assist features for semi-automated driving.
Our solution will enable any car owner paying just 550 € and 30€/year for software license, to enjoy the most advanced ADAS for semi-automated driving including: parking assistance, pedestrian detection, lane change assistance, traffic sign recognition, blind spot indicator, intelligent speed adaptation, driver monitoring, automatic certified accident picture taking, anti-collision and the most recent V2X and VANET (Vehicular Ad-hoc NETwork) connectivity (car-to-car/car-to-infrastructures communication for real time advise on unexpected road events).
As for understanding the market opportunity within this segment, the global ADAS market is expected to grow from €14.8 Billion in 2013 to €60.14 billion in 2020. According to our estimations of a base case scenario, the cumulative cash flow from commercialization of the SMARTCARS product will be €10.78M in less than 3 selling years, meaning a cumulative R.O.I of 379% in 3 years for the participation the project.
