Industry scurries to develop an alcohol detection technology

The $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act from late 2021 captured public attention for funding a wave of electric vehicle charging services. But buried deeper inside was also a mandate for a new technology that has nothing to do with EVs.

The law calls for a final rule to be issued next year requiring all vehicles sold in the U.S. to have the ability to passively detect when drivers are under the influence of alcohol and prevent them from driving.

That's a piece of technology that does not exist yet — at least, not as a commercialized market-friendly original-equipment vehicle component.

So the auto industry is scurrying to come up with the technology. And one global supplier, Asahi Kasei, may have a head start in the race.

The Japanese chemical and electronics company has conveniently had a Swedish subsidiary working on alcohol and gas detection sensors for other applications for 25 years.

Asahi Kasei is now working with a consortium of interested parties, including automakers, Tier 1 suppliers and government agencies, to move the technology into commercial feasibility — and to do so in a hurry, said Mike Franchy, director of North American mobility for the company. The law could ask to see the feature on the road as early as 2026.

"To be honest, I think it took everybody by surprise, not only in our company, but at all the OEMs and Tier 1's that this legislation appeared," Franchy told Automotive News. "It's something that's been proposed in the past. But everybody assumed we'd see it required first in Europe. It really came about here in the U.S. thanks to years of effort by Mothers Against Drunk Driving to work with the auto industry."

The anticipation that Europe would go first is what prompted Asahi Kasei to acquire the Swedish tech company Senseair five years ago. Senseair's new mission is to develop a sensor that can be seamlessly integrated into vehicles without the need for new cabin hardware.

Drivers would exhale toward a small sensor that could be embedded in the steering column or side door trim, and await a quick pass/fail reading on the alcohol content of their breath.

It uses an algorithm that detects the amount of ethanol on a driver's breath compared with naturally occurring carbon dioxide. The sensor works through a detector that measures how much infrared light of a specific wavelength is absorbed by the surrounding air. This measurement is then used to calculate the concentration of a specific gas — in this case, ethyl alcohol.

Asahi Kasei ultimately will not serve as the Tier 1 supplier of the technology to automakers, but will likely get it into passenger vehicles through other in-cabin components, Franchy said.

The burgeoning new business opportunity reflects what has been underway at Asahi Kasei, a corporation with $14.7 billion in revenue in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2022. The big company has been broadening its business base and seeking new markets.

When Asahi Kasei is known at all, it's typically for its decades-old position in chemicals. But in more recent years, the company has built a presence in structural materials, electronics, medical devices and diagnostics equipment.

The chance to create a new-age vehicle safety feature brings together different company knowledge sets, such as electronics and medical devices.

Franchy said Asahi Kasei wants to reposition itself to be more involved in the U.S. auto industry as more advanced technologies come out of North American engineering and R&D centers. Of the company's 46,750 global employees, 11,000 work in the U.S. in all fields.

"There are new product opportunities and new customer relations that are possible in the United States right now," Franchy said. "The U.S. is primed for growth."