The automotive industry is driving innovation and global technological advancement. As a result, today’s automobile represents the most sophisticated technology owned by most consumers. From the early stages of planning, automakers design new vehicles with a range of diverse technologies that meet customer needs for comfort, convenience, and safety while improving performance and energy efficiency. Virtually every aspect of the modern automobile is now high-tech, using state-of-the-art materials and processes that rely on highly skilled workers.
INNOVATION
How Automakers are Driving Innovation
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Policy Roadmap To Advance Automated Vehicle Innovation
Auto Innovators has released a comprehensive roadmap to guide federal government policies that can advance the testing and deployment of automated vehicles (AVs) in the United States.
Investing for the Future
Automakers invested more than $125 billion globally on research and development in 2018, ranking the auto industry ahead of other technology-driven industries, including the software/internet industry and the entire global aerospace and defense industry.
Innovation has always been important in the automotive sector, and that focus on new technologies and product features is growing. A recent Boston Consulting Group report documents how automakers have increasingly vied with technology companies for top ranking in their annual survey of the most innovative companies.
Annually, 3-5 percent of all patents in the U.S. are awarded to auto companies, with about 5,000 patents granted each year. To find other high-tech hallmarks of the auto industry, download this report from the Center for Automotive Research.
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How Innovation Gets to Market
An automobile purchased today is the product of years of R&D and investments. Typically, it takes five years or more for a technology or a new model vehicle to go from design to testing, from production to sale.
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Connected Vehicles
When the car moves from being a closed box to a “mobile device” with the ability to communicate, that is a “Connected Car.”
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Automated Vehicles
Vehicle automation on the road today—such as adaptive cruise control, dynamic brake support, and automatic emergency braking—is already bringing safety benefits.
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Cybersecurity
Automakers are working proactively to address the complexities and challenges of an increasingly connected and interconnected automotive ecosystem.
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Automotive Privacy
Protecting Connected Consumer Data
To prepare for an increasingly interconnected future, automakers are anticipating and acting to address the complexities and challenges that the future may bring.