The car AV aftermarket can give itself a small pat on the back, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.
For a few recent years, it fell behind Ford and others in leading innovation in automotive electronics, but it has retaken the lead on many technology fronts recently, said CEA Director of Industry Analysis Steve Koenig.
At its annual pre-CES gathering in New York this week, Koenig spoke on just a few CE categories, but car electronics was one of them. He pointed to technologies such as Android in car radios (Parrot Asteroid), the OnStar FMV and tablets headrest kits as evidence of the aftermarket speeding up innovation in the car. Also, where the car companies are rapidly developing advanced driver safety products like lane departure warning systems and early crash notification devices, so the aftermarket has come up with similar products from Mobileye and Audiovox.
Hey, it’s nice to see car audio get a shout out once in a while!
Source: CEA
A couple of random thoughts.
The innovations he talked about, at least the major ones, come from the O.E.M.
Lane Assist provides all the technology to the car manufacturers.
OnStar. I think that says enough.
Does anyone else see the irony with the “Aftermarket Strikes Back” star wars poster?
As I recall in that movie it was the bad guys striking back.
Does that make us in the aftermarket the bad guys?