From near-instantaneous traffic updates to alerts when another vehicle stops short or violates a red light, new and proliferating wireless sources of real-time information have begun to revolutionize the driving experience and represent the building blocks of a safer and better transportation environment.

Exploring some of the technical, commercial and end-user challenges involved in this critical undertaking, a new whitepaper, produced jointly by Strategy Analytics and Molex, “V2X: A Roadmap for Saving Lives”, considers the core Vehicle-to-Everything communications applications (V2X) technologies that are ushering in this new age of vehicle connectivity.

Building vehicles that are best equipped to capitalize on the deployment of 5G and in-vehicle Ethernet is a demanding proposition, while communicating with drivers demands a better understanding of their needs, clearer user interfaces and improvements.

“Until now, the intersection between cars and connectivity has been virtually non-existent. However, there is a growing sense within the automotive industry that pre-5G LTE-based connectivity in the form of C-V2X is about to revolutionize our understanding of the value of connecting cars,” Roger Lanctot, co-author of the report said. “Enabling cars to ‘see’ pedestrians is something of an industry Holy Grail. C-V2X, would enable so-equipped cars to more accurately sense the presence of pedestrians by detecting their C-V2X (or 5G enabled) smartphones. As C-V2X proliferates through mobile devices and eventually cars, vehicles will increasingly be able to detect other vehicles and pedestrians.”