June 2013 saw the European Commission adopt the latest proposals to ensure that eCall will be present in all new cars by October 2015. The system, which is estimated to be able to save up to 2,500 lives a year, automatically contacts the emergency services in the event of a serious crash, communicating the vehicle’s location, even if the driver is unconscious or unable to make a call.
“Last year, 28,000 people were killed and 1.5 million were injured on EU roads,” said Siim Kallas, European Commission Vice President and Commissioner responsible for Transport. “When an accident happens, every minute counts to rescue injured victims. The eCall technology has great potential to save lives by dramatically shortening the time of intervention of emergency services across the EU.”
Despite arguably being the most obvious next step in automotive safety, eCall was supposed to be rolled out voluntarily across Europe by 2009 – eight years after the idea was first suggested. However, as there was no legal requirement that the safety system be incorporated into cars, OEM adoption of eCall was particularly slow.
This new mandatory requirement will ensure that, from late 2015, all new models of passenger cars and light duty vehicles will be fitted with the system. The legislation also requires EU member states to build and maintain the necessary infrastructure for the proper handling of eCalls in emergency call response centres.
Positive supply
But it is not going to be an easy ride for OEMs and suppliers, with many saying that the two year deadline is still too short for compulsory fitment.
“There was no way to introduce eCall in 2009/2010. The technology was just not ready,” says Andreas Kohn, Director of Marketing, Transportation and Automotive at Sierra Wireless. “Then politics came in and put more pressure on manufacturers to adopt it and things started to move.
“If you ask car manufacturers they will tell you the timeframe is too short. They will say we need at least three years after the law is assigned, but in reality that is irrelevant, the technology needs to be introduced by 2015.”
Although expected, the mandatory announcement is a call for OEMs to quickly fit cars with the necessary equipment – but is the deadline pushing the boundaries of possibility for some OEMs, who may struggle to deploy eCall on a pan-European scale? Network availability, over-the-air upgrading capabilities and device maintenance are just some of the obstacles facing OEMs and operators.
According to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) the 2015 deadline certainly is an ambitious one – especially for those OEMs which will only now be starting the eCall incorporation process.
“Any public eCall service must be pan-European and available to all customers before the system becomes obligatory,” an ACEA spokesperson commented. “To work properly therefore, EU infrastructure must be ready and able to receive eCalls. The industry believes that it would be difficult to meet the 2015 deadline due to the pace of legislative procedures.
“With regard to the industry’s needs, 36 months of lead time would be required, starting from when the technical requirements and the test procedure are published in the Official Journal [expected to happen at the earliest in the first quarter of 2014]. It would be nearly impossible to implement the system within the time available if the technical requirements are only released in 2014, as anticipated.”
Other challenges for OEMs include which network technology to use for eCall, how to maintain the devices, and the overall price of adoption. Oliver Beaujard, Vice President of Market Development at Sierra Wireless explained, “2G offers sufficient bandwidth for handling the size of the SMS alert sent to the emergency services and is the most cost effective option. However, it is undecided whether 2G will be around for much longer.”
Despite this, suppliers like Sierra Wireless remain largely optimistic. “Like many others, [we are] already selling millions of wireless modules at the moment, and there are a lot of telematics units available. From the supply side, I don’t see any technical or schedule issue,” said Kohn.
Safety advantages
The safety benefits of this European safety system are certainly set to outweigh the teething troubles, and hopes are high that eCall will continue to grow and adapt – pushing the development of other M2M safety systems too.
“If you look beyond eCall, a lot of car manufacturers are starting deployment of telematics solutions where eCall is just one of the functionalities,” Kohn commented. “Therefore, maybe eCall will not only be advantageous in emergencies, but will act as a driver for OEMs in the future to use the technology for other services as well.”
Richard Cornish, Vodafone’s M2M Business Development Manager for Automotive, said, “M2M adoption will certainly continue to experience significant growth over the next few years, largely because the benefits are universal for OEMs, car dealerships, service providers and of course, drivers and passengers. In particular, M2M is addressing a number of priority issues for car owners. Through services such as eCall, M2M is delivering improved safety and security services.”
Speaking in a recent webinar, Covisint’s Chief Executive David Miller explained that while the accident-focused nature of eCall as it is now works well, drivers will expect the system to be more person-focused in the future.
“Connected vehicles have the ability to call the services and, if you look at it today, the call is very vehicle centric,” Miller said. “If you have a connected vehicle, they can send medical personnel to that location. When it becomes owner centric, there will be medical records of the owner or driver of the vehicle so that when the ambulance comes they know what your blood type is, what you’re allergic to, and your medical conditions. It’s not a car thing, it’s a driver thing that is going to change things in the end and that’s going to be of huge value because it gives people a notion of safety knowing they’re going to be looked after.”
Rachel Boagey
This article was first published in the Q3 2013 issue of Automotive World Megatrends Magazine. Follow this link to download the full issue
