Technology Roadmaps: Autonomous Vehicles

Reading the Roadmap

The roadmap was developed with reference to a range of previously cited sources, and Ionita (2017), Bansal (2017), ‘Managing Transition to Electrical and Autonomous Vehicles’ (2017).

Details of context have been divided into Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats. This should be read clockwise, and is colour-coded. Previous developments can be found in the top-left ‘strengths’ section of ‘context’.

Strategic steps are colour-coded: ‘green’ shows developments already completed; ‘orange’ shows projects in which research has taken place but is yet to achieve a collective decision; and ‘red’ signifies required developments prior to commercialisation which are either dependent on incomplete prior steps, or are in the very earliest stages.

Strategic steps aiming to mitigate against weaknesses or threats, or capitalise on existing strengths or opportunities, have been numerically marked to allow cross-referencing, and make any gaps in the ability of current strategy to address the context clearer.

Roadmap Development

Three criteria were developed to measure the success of this TRM, based on the six substantive elements found in the 2016 UNFCCC analysis of successful TRMs in the sustainable energy sector, but with an appreciation of the limitations of development independently (and without features such as ‘named point of contact’ for tasks).

It must:

• be suited to use for strategic planning at an executive level in industry;

• encourage regular updates, and be fit-for-purpose as a working document which sits alongside or incorporates with common strategy planning techniques;

• identify trends and drivers and signpost the links between strategy and the trends which they are in response to.

The roadmap is primarily a planning tool which provides a summary of a breadth rather than depth of factors in the current technological and market context. It was designed to function as a single-page summary, with enough detail to prompt discussion, behind which more specific descriptions, quantifiable targets, and individual project milestones would sit. It is anticipated that many of the strategic projects identified (i.e. sensors, machine learning, infrastructure etcetera) would require individual TRMs (which may not follow the same format) and detailed project breakdowns.

To position the document for high-level project planning, three key themes were identified which encompass the main blockers and areas of development. Most examples of TRMs are (unsurprisingly) focussed on the ‘technology’ strand, with discussions of the market primarily found in notes on ‘context’ and ‘opportunities’ at the beginning and end of the timeline (Phaal, 2020) . Technological development remains of primary concern in the case of AV, and was therefore situated as the first theme. However many reverse salients to widespread adoption are separate from technological constraints. These comprise public perception, wider infrastructure, and marketability issues, or relate to the complex and unprecedented legislative environment in which AV is situated. Therefore market and legislative themes are placed alongside technology, to encourage strategic planning in all areas equally.

Additionally, the current context is displayed as a SWOT analysis, rather than an historical timeline. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, many common roadmap formats don’t easily show their development process, and instead require entirely separate documents to be developed explaining their formation. This is despite most literature surrounding TRMs recommending they function as regularly updated working documents. This discrepancy limits widespread adoption, utility to businesses, and the use of TRMs alongside pre-existing methodologies (Lee and Park, 2011). Thus, incorporating a simple context analysis such as SWOT, clearly shows areas which should be discussed in the formation of the TRM as part of its structure. Secondly, this format allowed a greater amount of AV relevant information to be displayed than a timeline. The market in which AV finds itself has changed significantly in the 5 years since ‘on the road by 2020’ targets became widespread. The automotive industry is adapting to economic and social trends towards service-focussed offerings as hitherto product-based innovators (Grieger and Ludwig, 2019) and so, for this sector more than most, there was a clear need to incorporate an expanded illustration of the opportunities and threats which informed the strategic project areas. This ensures that where strategy was developed based on outdated assumptions, this is easily identifiable and adjustable.

Finally, the bulk of the TRM is taken up with strategy, showing significant development yet to come. Vitally, this provides a platform to express and compare the potential timelines for each strand of development, and the pathways of innovation which may next be explored. Considering the plethora of ‘ready by 2020’ promises and investor hype, concrete goals seldom materialise and cannot always be provided here in terms of absolute dates. Instead, possible future developments are presented as a series of logical operations (a ‘tech-tree’), each enabling a subsequent development and culminating in one of the many realisations required for the adoption and diffusion of the technology.