3M eyes autonomous vehicle market
The company’s CEO told media site Axios that the $6 billion market will be a “big, big deal for us.” While much attention has been focused on the sensors and software that enable autonomous driving technology itself, 3M sees its opportunity elsewhere in the space.
“The reality is there will not be only cars running around by themselves,” 3M CEO Inge Thulin told Axios. “There needs to be traffic safety around it, and that’s what we’ve been doing for a long, long, long time.”
The company, says Thulin, will be focusing its transportation-related efforts in three core areas: electronics, materials, and infrastructure. In electronics, the company offers automotive display films technology, coatings, adhesives, and thermal interfaces, as well as battery electrolyte and anode materials.
In materials, the company is reportedly working on a liquid that conducts heat out of lithium ion batteries, a specialized film for sensors that filters out poor signals, a light-managing film for windshields or displays, and a material that deflects dirt and weather elements from street signs to help them remain visible to autonomous car sensors.
In addition, the company has been testing “invisible” translucent stickers for smart street signs to help autonomous cars see where they are. The stickers feature bar codes – containing information like GPS coordinates or the location of nearby traffic lights – that self-driving cars can read. Likewise in terms of infrastructure, the company is creating machine-readable pavement markings that are specifically designed to stand out from surroundings so sensors can see them even under the most extreme weather conditions.
Given its already close relationship with transportation system regulators and planners around the world, the company is looking forward to help “fuel mobility, improve safety, and work with the data-driven environment of tomorrow’s cars and roadways.” For more, see “3M Connected Roads” (PDF).
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