September 29, 2025 - Partially Automated Driving to Dominate Through 2035

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 29, 2025, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

Telemetry has released a new market research forecast report, this time looking at the global market for assisted and automated driving systems. Going back a decade to when the automated driving hype cycle was really taking off, many were projecting that Level 4 automated driving systems would be ubiquitous by 2020, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk even claimed his vehicles would be Level 5 capable by 2017. All of those people were wildly wrong, and L4 or systems that can drive without human supervision or intervention within limited domains remain nascent, with only a few thousand early-generation vehicles currently in operation. L5 vehicles that can drive under all conditions in all locations probably won't appear until at least the late 2030s. 

Today, L1 systems that provide an array of independently operating features like adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, and lane centering are ubiquitous in most new vehicles in developed markets, with hands-on L2 systems that combine multiple functions increasingly common. Telemetry is forecasting that so-called L2+ systems that can operate the vehicle without the driver's hands on the steering wheel but still requiring constant supervision and readiness to take over will dominate through the second half of the 2020s. Beyond 2030, systems that allow the driver to go eyes-off but still remain behind the wheel are projected to get the largest share of the market, with L4 systems getting a growing share in that same period.

The full report is available to purchase here.

Thanks for listening.