Two out of every three cars sold in India in 2023 now come with some form of connected-car technology, from simple remote vehicle functions and communication systems to full-fledged advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). As more such cars drive across the country, the automakers are watching, quite literally, how they are driving.
The data coming out of these cars, buses and trucks, has huge value for manufacturers. It helps them build better vehicles, iron out inefficiencies and even pre-empt problems. This sort of data collection has helped automakers become far more efficient and has even altered the way traditional market research firms go about analysing their surveys. And this is helping with the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), by analysing consumer driving habits and developing vehicles that are optimised for their usage.
Julia Hedrick, Head – Global Automotive & Mobility, Ipsos, says: “There is a lot of information in the cloud. Companies can see what speeds customers are driving at, how many times they stop, how many times they use the brakes and the like. So, if there’s someone complaining about brake pad life or inefficiency of brakes, they have the data to understand their driving patterns.” She adds, “There are a lot of problems that also come with different seasons like the monsoons or in high temperatures, and all that data is integrated with the data that comes out of the vehicle.”
This sort of integrated data that combines onboard data with offline information such as the weather or season helps automakers develop vehicles with optimum range and performance, especially when it comes to EVs.
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Adds Balaji Pandiaraj, Executive Director, Ipsos: “We are correlating consumer responses from our surveys with the data that is flowing to us from the vehicles and seeing if there’s a synergy there. That’s an area we are actively working on.” The next phase of combining this data involves actively tracking consumer behaviour.
For instance, using in-car cameras, automakers can track things as minute as eye movements or hand gestures to optimise the placement of things like instrument clusters, infotainment systems and tactile controls in the car. Driving habits can be mapped by having subjects drive on a fixed path and figure out how they deal with obstacles on the route.
Autonomous vehicles in the slow lane
While all these technological studies will lead to more driving aids and eventually fully autonomous vehicles, Hedrick says there are a few challenges before countries like India or Brazil can adopt fully autonomous vehicles. She says commercial vehicles, like long-haul trucks or some bus routes, are probably going to become autonomous first, and only on specific routes where they have separate lanes for autonomous vehicles. “There are just so many unknown factors to be accounted for in cities in India or Brazil or even China, that fully autonomous vehicles will take a while to be adopted,” she says.
However, adoption of EVs is picking up. The US saw a jump in adoption from 3.2 percent of total passenger vehicles sold in 2021 being EVs to 5.8 percent this year. Yet, a lot of the adoption will depend on the infrastructure available – the location and type of charging stations, for example. While in developing countries, the charging infrastructure is still being set up, in developed countries, it’s time to check on the upkeep and possible replacement of charging infrastructure. Ipsos says it has participated in studies where drivers were engaged in travelling from point to point, checking on the state of public chargers and how they functioned. Such a study will boost consumer confidence in the infrastructure – and is a key deciding factor in EV adoption. Consumers can then figure out if they should be content charging at home or they can plan longer trips with access to working chargers on the way.
“If you don’t have the confidence that that’s going to work, even though 90 percent of the customers are charging their cars at home, it creates that uncertainty and anxiety,” she says.
The ABC of electric vehicle adoption
Balaji points out three issues why EV adoption isn’t taking off at the pace it should, especially in countries like India where there is mainly single-car ownership. He calls it ABC – Anxiety, Battery Issues and Cost of Ownership. While range anxiety is slowly being addressed with more charging infrastructure, confidence in battery issues is also abating with longer warranty periods of up to eight years on batteries. “But we are still in the honeymoon phase, where the replacement cost of batteries hasn’t yet come up, which will hugely add to the cost of ownership,” he says.
Hedrick adds: “In Europe that time is coming, and the concern is now shifting to sustainability. Are EVs as green and clean as they claim to be? That’s triggering investments in hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells and next-generation technologies.”
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An Ipsos study on sustainability in 33 countries had one standout result for India. “There is a segment we call busy bystanders – around 27 percent – these are people who don’t believe that climate change is really a big issue and they are perfectly fine using internal combustion engines. They feel that climate change is overhyped.”
Besides that, the cost is a major factor holding back the adoption of EVs. Says Hedrick: “On a global scale when we talk to consumers and their intention to buy, 80 percent said they would want to buy an EV. But the economic uncertainty – inflation and rising interest rates – means they don’t see value in paying more for an EV compared to an internal combustion engine vehicle.” There are some other downsides to EV adoption besides the cost. There are debates around cities seeing more wear and tear on roads with EVs, because they are heavier than their ICE counterparts. Not just that, there are also discussions around more tyre dust emanating from EVs due to increased tyre wear. So, eventually, EVs may not be the final outcome, they may just be a transition to other fuel systems.
