Organizations involved in car safety regulations are focusing on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for enhanced safety of both passengers and pedestrians. The American New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and the European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) have made some features, making ADAS, an important feature in new vehicles.

Due to the increase in the number of on-road accidents across the world, according to the World Health Organization, nearly 1.25 million people die annually, due to road accidents. The cause of these accidents is mostly attributed to the driver’s inability to judge certain conditions and make right decisions.

The efforts of various governments to reduce fatalities due to road accidents, have led to increased safety standards in new vehicles.

• In 2011, the American NCAP has declared forward collision warning (FCW), lane departure warning (LDW), and electronic stability control (ESC) as recommended features in new cars.
• Two years later, the Euro NCAP made speed assistance system (SAS) and seat belt reminder (SBR), a mandatory feature in all the new, as well as the existing vehicles.
• Later, in 2014, the American NCAP made ESC mandatory and the use of rear-view video system was highly recommended in the new vehicles. In the same year, the Euro NCAP made the use of automatic emergency breaking (AEB) and lane departure warning (LDW), a mandate.
• In 2016, the Euro NCAP made the use of Lane Keeping Assist, mandatory. The American NCAP is expected to make the use of rear-view video systems mandatory, by 2018.

NHTSA is conducting research on various ADAS features to increase the vehicle safety standards further. As part of these efforts, NHTSA included AEB to the list of vehicle safety standards, making it mandatory for a car to get a five-star safety rating.

With regard to other ADAS features, NHTSA is researching on inclusion of rear-end crash avoidance system (RECAS), collision mitigation breaking system (CMBS), blind spot detection, overtaking assistance system, and lane keeping and changing assistance systems. Furthermore, countries, such as Japan and China, are adopting various automotive safety regulations with regard to the ADAS features, as specified by the European Union.

With many countries taking utmost care for the road safety of passengers and increasing adoption of vehicles from the passengers, there exist huge opportunities for applications of power electronics in the automotive industry, during the forecast period.

Europe and North America dominated the global automotive power electronics market.

In Europe, the growth of electric car sales is mostly concentrated in a limited number of countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. These electric vehicles mainly adopt power control units (motor controllers) and battery management control units, which has further driven the automotive power electronics market in Europe.

Additionally, European government initiated that vehicles, which do not meet exhaust emission standards, have been strictly banned on the roads of urban cities, like Paris. Such initiatives are likely to drive more demand for electric vehicles, and in turn, experience increase in the demand for power electronics in the European market, during the forecast period.

France is one of the leading markets in European electric vehicles sales, which has experienced an average growth rate of 30% from 2014 - 2017. However, plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicles sales shared a deficient percentage of 0.9% of total vehicle sales in the country (including ICE and electric vehicles).

The presence of nearly more than 13,000 charging points located in the country, is driving automakers to produce more plug-in electric vehicles, along with strong support from the European government. The government is incentivizing French customers to opt for electric vehicles by providing purchase subsidiaries and ownership benefits, such as annual tax reduction and reduction in electricity cost. Moreover, the government also started to support the automotive business development by providing other local benefits, such as free parking, access to bus lanes, no tool-free, free charging access to the restricted areas in the city. With these advantages, the government of France aims at manufacturing about two million electric vehicles, by 2022.

Automakers in France are focusing to deploy reliable and robust power electronics in the vehicle systems, especially in their hybrid and electric vehicles production, that meets high energy requirements and ultimately achieve low fuel consumption rate and CO2 emissions in the market.