Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) was a hot topic during Monday’s session “Realities of Current and Future Technology in the Aftermarket” at Heavy Duty Aftermarket Dialogue (HDAD) in Las Vegas.
Brian Daugherty, MEMA chief technology officer and moderator, started the discussion by asking the panel how active safety systems and ADAS are going to impact the aftermarket and will their usage differ by class of truck.
“We see the penetration rates on ADAS, in particular, collision mitigation systems, at about 50 to 60 percent of the new Class 8 trucks being built today and they are going to large, self-insured fleets,” said Jon Morrison, president Americas, WABCO. “But also we’re seeing a pickup on the medium-duty side where some of the leasing companies are getting more of these systems.”
Ken Jones, vice president, global business development and sales, ZF Group, said, “These high adoption rates that Jon is talking about is because there’s a payback … to invest in them.”
He added, “The next level of technology for active safety would be to control the truck from an electric steering perspective, to keep the truck in the lane. About 32 to 34 percent of accidents are for leaving the lane. Keeping the truck in the center of the lane is the next level and I think you will see similar adoption rates over the next four or five years.”
WABCO and Bendix have integrated these systems as a value proposition for the end user and the overall safety benefit has dramatically improved, said Sandeep Kar, chief strategy officer, Fleet Complete.
“But what I want to talk about is future-focused from the aftermarket perspective. Something the aftermarket should be focused on as the proliferation of ADAS increases is what will be the … the frequency of maintenance of these systems. That’s something we will need to focus on as well because there will be implications resulting from it,” he said.
“Integration is key and it’s difficult to add them without understanding how they impact the rest of the [vehicle’s] systems,” said Mike Foster, chief technology officer, Allison transmission. “The ability to add things and getting them to play well with other [components] is going to be more of a challenge going forward.”
From the perspective of repair shops, servicing vehicles equipped with these safety systems has “certainly added a level of complexity but I think that, more importantly, as we have brought these systems out, they’re still fairly standardized in terms of what each supplier or OEM might be offering in terms of ADAS,” said Morrison. “That being said, from the start we have tried to provide driver and workshop training … and it’s very important for us to be able to intervene in order for them to be able to understand what is happening and resolve [the matter] as quickly as possible.”
