COUNTING CALIBRATIONS

ADAS calibrations are a billion-dollar business, says AutoBolt report

Story by ALLISON ROGERS

It’s time the industry gets a clear look at the sheer size of the ADAS calibration for auto glass market—and AutoBolt’s done the math for you. According to the company’s calculations in a recent report, there should have been 3.8 million ADAS calibrations on auto glass in 2022. Based on that data, the total addressable market for ADAS calibrations in the auto glass industry in the United States in 2022 was, in U.S. dollars, $959 million.

“[The report] shows that ADAS calibrations on auto glass is already a billion-dollar business,” explained Nick Dominato, CEO of AutoBolt. The company analyzed more than 10,000 windshield lookups with AutoBolt, where a VIN-verified result was provided, to determine how prevalent calibrations are in the auto industry, and to “identify new ADAS systems and the growth of non-ADAS technology.” Based on the collected data, there should have been 3.8 million ADAS calibrations in the auto glass industry in 2022, translating to a total addressable market of US$959 million.

“For the vast majority of automakers, a windshield replacement on a newer vehicle (i.e. model year 2020) all but guarantees a calibration will be required,” elaborates the report.

The company says 89 percent of 2023 model year vehicles include windshields requiring calibration. “We noticed a sharp up stick in windshields with ADAS requiring calibration starting in 2016. This coincides with a voluntary agreement by 20 automakers in 2015/16 to make automatic emergency braking standard on all light-duty cards and trucks with a gross vehicle weight of 8,000 lbs. or less, no later than September 1, 2022.”

While Asian and luxury automakers produce more than 95 percent of their models with forward-facing cameras (on average), domestic OEMs have been “laggards in ADAS adoption across the board,” says AutoBolt.

Some of this can be attributed to higher sales of pickup trucks or Jeeps—which have a gross vehicle weight rating exceeding the terms of the AEB voluntary agreement—but, even after filtering those out, AutoBolt says domestic automakers remain slower to adopt ADAS than Asian and European automakers. When it comes to static versus dynamic calibration, there’s no clear winner. Both are equally as common and have negatives and positives, notes AutoBolt, with the steep learning curve and space requirements that come with static calibrations and the fact that some dynamic calibrations can be impossible to perform under certain climate conditions.

One marked trend, however, has been the increase in vehicles allowing for a choice of static or dynamic calibrations—the best-case scenario, says Dominato. This won’t mark the end of growth in the ADAS calibration on auto glass market; automakers will continue to push the technological envelope, says AutoBolt—especially as head-up displays gain popularity. It’s already a billion-dollar business, and it’s only set to grow.