Rosy predictions for US in-vehicle biometrics sales will require regs to prove out

A podcast by century-old auto industry watcher WardsAuto shows how a billion or more dollars a year in revenue could be realized in the short term through new safety-related biometrics functions in vehicles.

David Kiley, a senior editor with WardsAuto, spoke with an executive from the OEM Bosch North America. John Nowinski says there is a good market in adding better sensors and algorithms to cars without mandating them.

That’s an important distinction. Kiley quotes industry statistics indicating that added or improved biometrics could generate $800 million to $1.6 billion a year, assuming 16 million new unit sales. But something less than all of the owners of the new cars will accept the surveillance even for their own safety.

Nowinski says there already are enough systems in vehicle interiors with capabilities that could be expanded to offer new functions and benefits that large percentages of consumers would welcome even if it added to the sticker price.

For instance, radar in the interiors of some new cars today could see through seats and blankets to spot the forms of children in the back. Children go unnoticed or forgotten in a car, and biometrics could alert drivers before they leave the vehicle.

And the radar and camera could use facial recognition to arrange the cabin according to preferences, he said.

Whether niche functions like these will amount to meaningful revenue is not known.

To get to 100 percent use will take regulation, which is in the works, but there is a large fraction of Americans, for example, who do not want to surrender their privacy to carmakers. There are others who see conspiracies behind almost anything Washington does.

NHTSA, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration right now is formulating rules that would require all new vehicles starting in 2026 to use biometrics to measure suspected inebriation in a driver entering the cabin.

Sniffing the air for exhaled alcohol and examining a person’s eyes for telling features is not a challenge for biometrics. And it would seem that most people want impaired drivers prevented from crossing their paths.

But not even this seemingly anodyne rationale for facial recognition and other measurements will not be compelling enough some, and that vocal segment could scuttle new regulation, which won’t do any favors for the industry.

Article Topics

automotive biometrics  |  biometric sensors  |  consumer adoption  |  eye tracking  |  monitoring  |  regulation