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Impact of car accidents and technology on the automotive repair business

Trends

April 13, 2021

9 MIN of Reading

How does the automotive repair business adapt and differentiate itself?

The lockdown rules had a natural impact on reducing car accidents during 2020 due to the restrictions imposed on traffic (26% fewer accidents and 18% fewer fatalities), but the overall downward trend in this indicator has already been evident since 2017, according to the latest data from the ACAP observatory on the aftermarket.

Considering that the total number of accidents is an indicator of the number of vehicles entering the workshop, it is predictable that this trend will affect the repair business more significantly and thus represent a warning for professionals in the market to adapt themselves to the market.

In addition to this trend, there is a whole range of new technologies that will be implemented from 2022 onwards that aim to reinforce this reality, as the European Union intends to revolutionize road safety with a range of features that help drivers to be more “safety-driven”.

Safety Technologies

The trend is to change traditional mobility (non-autonomous or dependent on human interaction) so as to ensure that cars are increasingly safe when driving, by means of reactive or responsive alarm mechanisms and systems that increase drivers' ability to respond in a way that is very close to the “human-augmented” concept, allowing an almost 360° view in terms of spatial proximity.

Safety technology incorporated in the most recent vehicles:

Emergency braking is extended to light vehicles.
Vehicles must integrate attention monitoring systems, detecting sleepiness and tiredness in the driver.
Vehicles must have a lane maintenance assistant and adaptive cruise control.
Rear cameras and sensors are now mandatory.
Vehicles will now have a breathalyzer to prevent drunk drivers from driving.

This technological evolution, based above all on automation, data, interfaces, sensors and system interconnectivity, is designed for seamless integration, for example via the Internet of Things (IoT) with smarter cities in the future, but in the immediate future the focus is on reducing accidents as much as possible.

This whole scenario raises additional challenges for the aftermarket, in particular the training and qualification of professionals, enabling them to deal with these new technologies as they are incorporated into the different vehicle models, but above all when they start arriving more regularly at independent repair or maintenance workshops.

Access to knowledge on how technology works is not just an option, as the need to keep up with the changes that these technologies produce in the drivers' habits, since the aftermarket needs to be aware of the way to anticipate and position itself in the value chain of its business.

Tip4y creates the best knowledge about automotive identity, from which it develops comprehensive solutions for this market, precisely to assist professionals in developing an “augmented” vision of the competitive environment and managing their businesses in the most diverse contexts of evolution.

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