The
increasing support from the government to popularize autonomous cars, inclusion
of connected car technologies, and need for increased safety on the roads are
driving the European autonomous car market. Autonomous cars, also sometimes
known as driverless cars, are capable of functioning without or little human
intervention, by sensing the surroundings and navigating safely. Among the two
types of such cars — semi and fully — fully autonomous cars are expected to
register a sale of 4 million units by 2030, at a CAGR of 37.4% during
2023–2030.
The
inclusion of artificial intelligence (AI) in autonomous cars is trending in the
European autonomous car market. Autonomous cars development has only
been possible due to this technology. Features such as driver monitoring,
speech recognition, gesture recognition, eye movement tracking, natural
language interfaces, and virtual assistance are essential for a car to become
autonomous. Further, AI was also instrumental in the development of the
advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS), which has driver condition evaluation
systems, camera-based machine vision systems, and sensor fusion engine control
units.
The
categories of the country segment of the European autonomous car market are
the U.K., Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and Rest of Europe. Among these, more
than 20.0% of volume share was held by Germany due to the presence of large original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs), such as BMW and Volkswagen AG. Throughout the
forecast period, Germany is expected to account for the highest sales and
revenue in the market. OEMs are planning to equipping autonomous cars with
superior features such as smart park assist, blind spot detection, and
anti-lock braking system.
The
European autonomous car market players can use the deployment of such vehicles
for mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) to increase their revenue. Considering that
the chances of accidents are high in traditional car sharing, service providers
would ultimately adopt autonomous cars for better passenger safety. As these
cars are quite expensive for privately ownership, mobility services would
witness an increase in their adoption. Many players have already entered the
market, for instance, Navya, a French startup, which launched its first
autonomous taxi in 2018.
Therefore,
the market for autonomous cars in Europe is expected to grow at a steady rate
due to the rising demand for such cars in the region for sharing purposes.
european investment in autonomous vehicles
