Hot Rods Meet ADAS

According to a research study by the Specialty Equipment Market Association, that included input from Ducker Worldwide and the Center for Automotive Research, the electronic content in a new vehicle is greater than 40 percent and the gross margins on some of this content is as high as 60 percent.

Needless to say, when you’re looking at numbers like those, then there is a tremendous amount of appeal for the companies that are represented by SEMA, as these are companies that are focused on the automotive aftermarket. Historically, these are companies that provide automotive enthusiasts with everything from new wheels to exhaust kits that help make vehicles faster and often look cooler.

Somehow, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) doesn’t seem to be within their spheres of interest. Yet as the study points out, there are companies that are providing some ADAS aftermarket gear. What’s more, the 2016 market of $977-million is expected to grow at a 9.1 percent annual compound rate so that by 2021 that number will be some $1.5-billion.

And what company wouldn’t be interested in getting a piece of that?

Aftermarket supplier Brandmotion has developed a 360º vision system that provides a full view of a vehicle’s surroundings; its first system is for 2004 to 2015 Ford F-Series trucks.

John Waraniak, vp of Vehicle Technology for SEMA and automotive enthusiast and disruptor extraordinaire, talks about the implications of ADAS on the tuners of today and tomorrow on this edition of “Autoline After Hours.”

While there is sometimes concern expressed that working on vehicles—wrenching, as it were—is something that is of interest primarily to a generation that is chronologically, but not psychologically, distant from when they got their license at age 16, Waraniak points out that given the increasing amount of electronic technology in vehicles, there is a whole new generation that is interested in hacking and making and that these young people find cars to me more than slightly appealing.

Also on the show is Diane Fils-Schneider, Executive Director, Concours d'Elegance of America, which just finished up its three-day run at the Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth, Michigan (which coincidentally happens to be the city from which what you’re reading right now originates).

The Concurs included a wide assortment of vehicles, ranging from classic Bugattis to “Jet Age” vehicles (e.g., 1958 DeSoto Firesweep) to Modern Collectibles (1993 Nissan 300ZX) to an assortment of Porsches to mark its 70^th anniversary to cars powered by steam to supercars (including the 2018 Ford GT that was owned by our friend, the great Ford designer Chris Svensson, who passed on July 21).

The Concurs celebrated its 40^th anniversary, and it did so with aplomb.

Waraniak and Fils-Scneider talk to Autoline’s John McElroy and me on the show.

In addition to the foregoing, we talk about Sergio Marchionne’s tremendous impact on FCA and the auto industry at large, what people leave behind in Ubers, and a whole lot more, which you can see right here.