• Even as fully autonomous technology solutions are further in the future for mass-market vehicles, interim solutions like Mobileye’s Surround ADAS do hold appeal for automakers that want to offer consumers the benefits of enhanced safety and limited hands-free functionality.
• Mobileye’s Surround ADAS appears to blend the right ingredients, including integrated hardware and software, a partnership with Valeo for ECU and sensor supply, and competitive system costs which appeal to automakers like Volkswagen, leading to its first design win.
• The success of enhanced Level 2+ ADAS systems, such as that of Mobileye, will be dictated by their real-world performance along with mass-market consumers’ willingness to pay for enhanced safety and convenience features, such as hands-off driving on highways.

While fully autonomous driving is making significant technological progress, with several Level 4 robotaxi trials running across different cities in the world, it remains a distant dream for the transportation sector. The market for Level 3 autonomous driving features offered on premium vehicle models is limited due to the high cost of the vast suite of enabling technologies — powerful SoCs that provide high levels of compute, and a wide array of sensors, including Lidar. The level of technological maturity along with high cost means mass-market adoption of fuller autonomy will not be achieved in the near term. Despite this being the situation in the market, Mobileye has just announced a near-term solution called Mobileye Surround ADAS. It promises a breakthrough for the adoption of enhanced ADAS features for mass-market vehicles.

Mobileye’s new solution uses a total of 11 sensors comprising cameras and lower-cost radar, a single and lower-power compute chip and the latest advancements in AI, sensor fusion and mapping to keep costs low. The ADAS Surround system can provide not just essential safety features but also more premium driving features, such as hands-free driving (on highways) and smart parking.

Mobileye Surround ADAS a mass-market solution for enhanced safety and limited hands-free driving

Mobileye has championed the mass-market ADAS for nearly a decade with its L1 and L2 systems. Its innovations in AI techniques blending end-to-end perception software that transforms raw sensor data into more precise and actionable insights have enabled it to develop the SuperVision hands-free, point-to-point driving system. Mobileye’s experience with such a system has provided it with learnings to enhance the typical ADAS feature set:

• Hands-off highway assist up to 130 kmph
• Surround collision avoidance
• Lane support system
• Low-speed acceleration control
• Automatic lane changes

The company has integrated its core software stack with its data from Road Experience Management (REM), which is a crowdsourced map of the world that has been digitized for autonomous vehicle needs, and enabled over-the-air updates of new features to achieve the above feature set.

Mobileye’s ADAS Surround system hardware* and software stack consists of:

• 1 x EyeQ 6 High paired with an MCU
• 2 x long-range 8MP front and rear (optional) facing cameras
• 4 x short-range 3MP parking cameras
• 5 x radars (4 x near-range radar and 1 x medium-range radar)
• 8 x ultrasonic sensors
• REM cloud-based maps
• Driver monitoring system

(* Tier 1 supplier Valeo is the hardware partner for ECU and sensors for supply to Volkswagen Group)

Source: Mobileye

Mobileye has applied its key corporate DNA traits of focusing on cost and complexity reduction to the Surround ADAS system. It has adopted an architecture that links a single ECU to multiple sensors to ease integration, improve performance and eliminate the overly complex and fragmented supply chains for similar systems. Automakers can also access Mobileye’s proprietary Driving Experience Platform tool to tune the system’s safety parameters and consolidate other features on a single ECU, such as driver monitoring. By controlling the overall system cost (lower compute power and fewer sensors) and development cost, the Surround ADAS system is estimated to cost $700-$800 per vehicle based on Mobileye’s system cost guidance presented at CES 2025.

Mobileye has already bagged its first design win with Volkswagen Group for Level 2+ (partially automated driving) on its MQB platform vehicles spanning the Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda and SEAT brands. Tier 1 supplier Valeo will provide high-performance ECUs, sensors and parking solutions, while Mobileye will contribute its Surround ADAS platform including the EyeQ6 High processor and REM mapping technologies

Source: Mobileye Press release

Analyst takes:

• Counterpoint Research expects incremental progression in autonomy levels in the car market where vehicles will transition from the present SAE Level 1 and Level 2 systems to higher levels through upgrades rather than step jumps. Thus, the Mobileye Surround ADAS holds tremendous potential for mass-market vehicles as it enhances the safety appeal and widens the feature set available.
• Mobileye’s integration of software and hardware, AI innovations, REM maps and its software-defined approach provide real benefits in improving efficiency and bringing the system-level cost down to $700-$800 levels. This should enable higher uptake for the Surround ADAS system by automakers.
• Complexity in the hardware and software value chain goes down due to Mobileye’s focus on integrated solutions and its partnership with Tier 1 supplier Valeo for the supply of ECU and sensors. This approach appeals to legacy automakers like Volkswagen Group who are looking to simplify their supply chains with a focus on keeping the system costs low.
• The challenge for Mobileye in scaling up will be to ensure that the real-world performance of the Surround ADAS system delivers on its promise. Ultimately, the willingness to pay for the incremental value customers associate with enhanced safety and ADAS feature set will determine the success of Mobileye Surround ADAS.