Car or Computer? Gadgets in autos pile up

Chang-Ran Kim, Asia auto correspondent

TOKYO: When Nobuyuki Furui joined Toyota Motor Corp.'s electronics section in 1980, he had just 50 or so co-workers.

Things certainly have changed.

"Now there are five big electronics divisions with thousands of workers total," said Furui, a group manager at one electronics engineering division, surrounded by a display of Toyota's latest safety technologies at a facility near Mount Fuji.

Electronics have long since replaced mechanics in a car's braking and steering, for example, and will be used more as auto makers race to build cleaner and safer cars, while bringing more comfort and convenience to drivers.

"There's virtually no component that runs solely on mechanics now," said Takeshi Uchiyamada, a senior managing director in charge of vehicle technology at Toyota.

Already, high-tech sensors, radars and cameras are used for gadgets such as parking assist units, lane keeping and adaptive cruise-control systems, while electronics are also present in car navigation and remotely controlled lock functions.

But as car manufacturers move from "passive safety" to "active safety" -- for instance, alerting drivers to danger instead of simply reducing the damage from a collision with seatbelts and airbags -- the use of such parts will grow.

Thanks to this trend, global demand for car-use semiconductors rose 19 percent in 2003 to $14 billion, and is forecast to rise at an annual rate of around 10 percent in subsequent years, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA).

By 2007, chip demand for cars is set to reach $20.91 billion.

That number could swell if gasoline and diesel-electric hybrids catch on faster: the niche vehicles, which use electric motors and battery packs to improve fuel efficiency, use twice as many chips as a conventional combustion-engine car.

Car makers are also using electronic controls in fuel injection units and other areas to help save fuel for conventional combustion-engine cars in ways that they say were not possible mechanically.

The use of electronics goes beyond safety and clean air.

By combining electronics with information technology, big car makers are also stepping up work on interactive transportation systems that could help smooth the flow of traffic and help drivers communicate with each other.

Car navigation and electronic toll collection systems are already common in Japan, but that could extend to electronic payment at petrol stands and drive-through shopping stops.

"Electronics are now vital to raise the value of cars," said Hironobu Kiryu, a chief engineer at Honda Motor Co. "Without them, there will be no progress."

The end of the road is distant. Car executives and engineers often talk of collision-free vehicles as their ultimate goal.

BOON FOR ELECTRONICS MAKERS

The trend toward more electronics has not only helped car parts makers that are dominant in the field, such as Visteon Corp., Bosch and Denso Corp., but also pure electronics makers like Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. and NEC Electronics Corp.

"The role of pure electronics makers could get bigger with this trend," said Koji Endo, analyst at CSFB Securities, adding however, that their roles would likely be secondary as long as auto makers remain protective of the initial breakthrough technology for an electronic car part.

To prepare for the spread of advanced safety and other features to lower-end cars -- most are now limited to luxury vehicles or as expensive options due to high R&D costs -- electronics firms are beefing up their car parts operations with the aim of getting more business from car makers.

In one of the boldest moves, Hitachi is set to absorb its car parts affiliate and unit later this year, aiming to double auto parts sales to 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) by 2010/11 from this year's estimate.

Japan's biggest electronics conglomerate already has its own test track and supplies various products that have become standard features on most cars, such as ABS (anti-lock braking system).

With every major car component dependent on sophisticated software now, some say electronics makers may soon be able to build vehicles on their own. Car makers beg to differ.

"We car makers are often seen merely as assemblers of a collection of parts, but that's not true at all," said Yasuhiko Fujita, an engineer working on sensors and cameras at Honda.

"We come up with the technology we want from suppliers based on years of experience in building cars, and that's not something electronics makers can figure out on their own," he said, stressing that the relationship between car makers and electronics makers was cooperative, not competitive.



Rival Toyota isn't so sure.

"The line between car makers and electronics makers is extremely fuzzy," said Toyota's Uchiyamada, noting that much of the development of new technology is done in-house.

"It's a race between us and them."