According to analyst firm ABI Research, SAE L2 automated parking assist — enabling self-parking with the driver outside the vehicle but still in control remotely — will gain higher traction from 2026 and drive car OEM revenues for parking systems to reach $11 billion in 2030.
Meanwhile, the market opportunity for SAE L4 Autonomous Valet Parking (AVP) — allowing vehicles to park and be summoned without the presence of a driver — will remain subdued in the consumer segment until the end of this decade.
“Considered the easiest to accomplish L4 functionality, due to its low speed and constrained Operational Design Domain (ODD), AVP still has many challenges to overcome before achieving scale in the consumer market, including vehicle localization and environment sensing, regulation, and consensus concerning minimal infrastructure requirements,” explained Maite Bezerra, smart mobility and automotive analyst at ABI Research.
“Therefore, OEMs are heavily investing in L2 automated parking assist that allows for immediate monetization and potentially offers an upgrade opportunity to L4 autonomy in sophisticated deployments with high computing capacity.”
While parking assist (warnings only) and semi-automated parking assist (autonomous steering) will still account for over two-thirds of parking systems in new vehicles in 2030, L2 automated parking assist will be responsible for 59% of revenues, ABI said.
Automated parking assist will become a standard feature in the next decade as the technology becomes more widely accepted, it added. Besides monetization opportunities within the current legal framework, these systems will also help develop and train algorithms for AVP deployment and potentially scale to L4 autonomy via OTA updates, as with Steer’s solution.
The AVP solutions available today are based on infrastructure intelligence – rather than vehicle sensors – and sit within a highly constrained environment.
Despite the minimal vehicle requirements, this deployment strategy will not scale in the consumer vertical due to high installation and maintenance costs per unit and no ROI prospects.
“However, it has found a solid B2B business case in car manufacturing plants to move newly produced vehicles from one production point to the next, replacing actual drivers and reducing risks of damage,” Bezerra noted.
Nevertheless, infrastructure-based AVP demos featured at the IAA 2021 Mobility Show suggest that the industry is not close to identifying a common technology standard.
ABI Research expects an AVP deployment based on vehicle intelligence to be the most solid path to market in the consumer vertical.
“Nevertheless, minimum infrastructure requirements still must be in place. That includes drop-off/pick-up zones and the ability to stop all maneuvers in emergencies. Additionally, unless vehicles can self-map parking garages through onboard sensors, relying on drivers’ willingness to scan the parking garage before using AVP, tools to support localization with centimeter-level precision (e.g., artificial landmarks or HD maps) must be available,” Bezerra concluded.
