
One of the major challenges VANETs face is the deployment
hurdle caused by the fact that cooperative peer-to-peer systems
do not constitute an immediate value to customers, if a critical
penetration rate is not reached. Even in an optimal introduction
scenario, where every new car will be equipped with a
V2V communication system from a certain date onwards, the
Car2Car Communication Consortium estimates that it will
take about one and a half years to reach a 10% penetration
rate, and more than six years to reach 50%. A key point
of the DRIVE-IN project is the industrial partnership with
NDrive, a global player in the Portable Navigation Systems
market, and the consequences on VANET deployment that
result from such partnership. As opposed to the car market, the
navigation systems market is on hyper-growth, and the year
2007 as doubled the numbers of 2006. Furthermore, Portable
Navigation Devices (PND), as sold by TomTom, Garmin or
NDrive, account for more than 80% of all units. TeleAtlas
made an Europe market forecast of 30 million PNDs by 2009,
representing 30% of the existing car park.