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Adapt, acquire and aggregate: how to succeed in automotive electronics

Megatrends talks to Christian Feltgen about Visteon’s investments in connected car technology and services. By Rachel Boagey

Visteon has recently become one of the top three global suppliers of vehicle cockpit electronics following its acquisition of the electronics division of Johnson Controls (JCI), which the company says will further its deliverance of innovative in-vehicle user experiences, as well as providing it with combined annual sales of US$3bn.

The supplier has spent the last few years positioning itself to support vehicle to infrastructure (V2X) communication, through homegrown technology solutions and strategic partnerships, and is using its recent acquisition, amongst other developments, to improve its standing in the automotive electronics industry.

Megatrends spoke to Christian Feltgen, Global Director of Cockpit Electronics, and Vice President of the Technology Office at Visteon, about the company’s recent developments and future plans for market expansion.

Visteon Centerpiece Cockpit

Acquired benefits

“The reasons behind the acquisition were fairly straightforward,” said Feltgen, “including the sheer market size it would provide and the difference it would make to our relevance within the industry.” The acquisition not only put Visteon amongst the top three players in cockpit electronics, but Feltgen also explained that it has given the company all the necessary levers and advantages it needs in terms of purchasing power, global engineering footprint and manufacturing footprint, as well as bigger budgets and greater resources for advanced development.

The acquisition of Johnson Controls Electronics also provides more specific implications in technology areas, explained Feltgen, referring to the two organisations’ similar histories. Thanks to technologies that complement the cockpit electronics portfolio, he said, “We are able to integrate technologies, modules, electronics, and control units, and JCI brings a very market-leading technology in that space.”

One particular advantage of the Johnson Controls Electronics acquisition was its head-up display technology. Feltgen noted, “The old Visteon has been very successful with market leading technology when it comes to display integration, centre stack and instrument cluster. However, JCI brings great technology in combiner and windshield head-up display technology, which complements the overall user experience technology.”

Connected convenience

“Connectivity is one of the buzz words or megatrends for our product segment and for the whole industry, and our 4G LTE demonstrator car helps to reduce manufacturing complexity. A car that is permanently connected can be updated and have features added after the point of manufacturing and sale.” However, also equally relevant as a reduction in manufacturing complexity, explained Feltgen, is the ability to manage content and quality of the car in the field. “Today, typically cars have to be recalled for every issue that has to be fixed. With the car being connected, you can do this over the air. And that takes a lot of lifetime cost out of the automotive industry as a whole. That one we actually consider a bigger advantage than the reduction in manufacturing complexity.”

Feltgen addressed the importance of car infotainment platforms being adapted and updated constantly, and explained that in the future, the supplier will continue to evolve its infotainment solutions to meet rapidly changing customer needs. “The ability to update a car’s IVI system has to be a given very soon,” said Feltgen, “And not only in the sense of simple telematics, but the car has to be connected to an infrastructure that enables over the air updates.”

Eyes on the road

Visteon OpenAir I1.2 platform
Visteon OpenAir I1.2 platform

Many efforts have been made by suppliers including Visteon to address the challenge of driver distraction, investigating many kinds of distraction avoidance technologies such as eye tracking, touch, voice, intelligent data analytics and ultimately putting all of these elements together to further enhance the user experience in the car. Specifically, explained Feltgen, the supplier has recently been in the development stages regarding touch and camera-enhanced cockpits.

Feltgen also noted that the company has significantly increased its investment in consumer research. “One has to understand what makes up an acceptable human machine interface, which technologies are a risk relative to driver distraction, and which technologies help the driver to concentrate.”

Driver distraction issues within the car need to be addressed using multimodal HMIs, said Feltgen. “Instead of having only one way to operate one function, giving the consumers in different regions different ways of controlling a feature or a function in the car is a key enabler to reducing driver distraction.”

Product aggregation

Today, explained Feltgen, a mid-size, premium car has 80 to 90 electronic control units (ECUs); Visteon is investing in solutions that enable aggregation and integration of those ECUs into fewer, but more powerful units.

“The instrument cluster in a car has always been completely separate from the audio and infotainment unit. We want to join the two and we’re the first company that offers a market-ready secure solution to run those features out of one box.”

Design-to-adapt

Visteon recently released a demonstration vehicle equipped with a 4G LTE telematics system offering a Wi-Fi hotspot, and Feltgen explained that technological developments such as these would be able to reduce the manufacturing complexity of the vehicle and enable Visteon to manage vehicle content and quality.

To do this, the concept car was built on a single hardware architecture that supports regional requirements through unique modem implementations and incorporates not only a telematics control unit (TCU), but OS software, apps and cloud services for a complete end-to-end solution.

One of the challenges currently being addressed by Visteon, explained Feltgen, is that in the past, the automotive industry has focused on the car’s release to the dealership. “Every technology that went into the car was designed towards step one, but that will change.”

Going hand-in-hand with the increasingly connected car is being able to not only update, but store the software and data. The products currently designed by Visteon are designed under the theme of design-to-adapt. “Our products, both with the OEM and the end consumer, need to be designed and connected in a way that enables the updating, enhancing and offering of additional features over the lifetime of the vehicle. From design to start of production, companies need to design-to-adapt over the Cloud.”

Renault NEXT TWO Connected Cockpit
Renault NEXT TWO Connected Cockpit

Design-to-adapt, said Feltgen, is a theme that is incorporated into every product produced by Visteon. “We do it in a way that enables access and new features, fixing issues over the lifetime. That’s a big trend. And that is not just a trend relative to one product – that’s a trend that impacts a lot of products in the car.”

Looking to the future, Feltgen explained the importance of Visteon not only investing in a full connectivity portfolio, but of also investing in the services. “We need to make sure we are providing services above and beyond the products on offer and that will be a very important trend for us.” As the market is still very fragmented, he added, many different OEMs have multiple strategies, leaving Visteon with the important job of positioning itself to service that market.

Although the supplier may be on the right track in achieving these goals, whether through acquisition, aggregation or innovative product development, the main hurdle lying ahead for Visteon, as for other suppliers, is continuing to prove itself in the ever-expanding automotive electronics industry.

This article appeared in the Q3 2014 issue of Automotive Megatrends Magazine. Follow this link to download the full issue.

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