It’s all about Situational Awareness - Until our cars are equipped to drive themselves we will have to continue to operate the pedals, the steering wheel, and continuously interpret and react to mirror images, signage, signals, and the world outside the windshield.  Self driving cars are inevitable; in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation in November 2007, Larry Burns, GM's vice-president for research and development and strategic planning, stated that self-driving cars could be on the road by the year 2015. 

While we think it might take a few more years than that, we agree that it will happen.  In the meantime, however, there is a lot of room for improvement.  Situational awareness on our roads determines the throughput or bandwidth; and by improving driver response we have the ability to significantly improve the efficiency of our finite road and highway infrastructures.  SepiaWave is introducing technologies to improve driver situational awareness that improves safety, driver response times, and overall efficiency.

Industry Dynamics 

With the ongoing transfer of automotive manufacturing from mature, developed industrial bases to newer, lower-cost, developing economies, it is apparent that collaboration and technological innovation are key to sustaining traditional automotive industries.  For example, while the U.S. manufacturing base stagnates, the Indian auto industry is only fifteen years old and boasts the largest growing domestic market for automobiles.  Over 3.5 million people per year over the next 30 years will afford to own a car in India.  While producing only 2 million cars this year, the Indian auto industry, embraced by the Indian Government, is estimated to grow to $25B by 2015.  The Indian Government expects the automotive industry to grow from 5% of the country’s GDP to 10% in the same period, and, significantly, India is a relatively free market that embraces collaboration on free market terms. 

Globally, the auto supply industry exceeds $1 trillion in revenue per year and accounts for two-thirds of the content of every new vehicle.  Frost and Sullivan predicts that suppliers will handle 60% of the automotive industry’s research and development by 2012, up from 40% in 2008.  SepiaWave’s innovative automotive technologies, designed in collaboration with the auto supply industry, offer significant improvements in efficiency to the global automobile industry.