Embedded chips and connected car news tips this week include Tesla, AutoMobility LA, GM, Bosch, TomTom, Econolite, Savari, Intersil, Zonar and Mitsubishi.
Top Best a’ Tesla
Tesla Model S sales topped other luxury vehicles, again.
The Los Angels Police and Tesla are partnering to retrofit Tesla loaned Model S’s with equipment for police patrol.
Tesla revamped its referral program starting October 16 and until January 15, 2017. It offers $1,000 discount for the new buyer being referred to Tesla and a limit of 10 referrals per Tesla owner with each level of ‘Qualifying Referrals’ giving access to a prize. 10 referral provider get an invitation to attend the next Tesla unveiling. 5 or more referrers get a tour with a guest of the Fremont factor. Tesla headphones go to 3+ referrers. A Tesla carr-on goes to those with 2+ referrers. Every qualified referral puts referrer into a drawing to win the choice of either a Ludicrous P100D Model S or Model X.
Seattle-based Axon is offering a Model 3 to some candidates, including a web developer and full-stack engineer. Employees must stick around for at least 90 days, and existing workers can get on the Tesla list by referring three new workers to Axon.
GM’s Maven Car Sharing Shares San Francisco
General Motors’ car-sharing program Maven, has expanded into San Francisco, marking its ninth market since launching in January.
AutoMobility LA
At AutoMobility LA several new vehicles will be revealed. AutoMobility LA will also host its award-winning conference, where industry experts will discuss the hottest topics surrounding the future of transportation. More than 50 luminaries, including the CEOs of Ford, Intel, Local Motors and Next EV will make announcements and offer insights from the Roadshow by CNET stage.
AUTO Connected Car readers who register for AutoMobility LA can use the coupon code ACCN2016 to save $200 off the AutoMobility Conferenece.
Econolite & Savari
Econolite Group announced it has entered into negotiations with Savari Inc. with the objective of forming a partnership to accelerate the deployment of connected and automated vehicle technologies and solutions with a focus on vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) safety applications. The two companies will continue to build on previous connected vehicle collaborations and cooperate in the sales, marketing, and manufacturing of Savari’s StreetWAVE™ Road-Side-Units (RSUs) and Econolite’s Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) solutions that leverage Savari’s latest V2I safety applications such as Curve Speed Warning (CSW), Work Zone Warning (WZW) and In-Vehicle Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT).
Econolite Group’s partnership with Savari Inc. brings together the industry leaders in ITS and traffic management and V2I Road-Side-Units to accelerate the deployment of the smart infrastructure required for Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) networks.
Intersil Gamma Buffer fro TFT-LCD
Intersil Corporation, a leading provider of innovative power management and precision analog solutions, announced the industry’s lowest power 14-channel programmable gamma buffer for automotive TFT-LCD displays. The automotive-grade ISL76534 delivers the highest accuracy gamma calibration to ensure consistent brightness and color matching of every LCD panel inside a vehicle. The ISL76534 is ideal for next generation LCDs designed for infotainment displays, advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) smart mirrors and instrument cluster displays.
The robust ISL76534 provides engineers with one Vcom and 14 gamma channels with 10-bit resolution for fine-tuning the gamma curve. LCD panels that are not properly gamma corrected often appear bleached out or too dark. Engineers employ the ISL76534 to calibrate and store the gamma curve, guaranteeing that each LCD powers up and displays eye-pleasing images. The ISL76534’s internal EEPROM stores the factory-calibrated gamma and Vcom reference values, and enables significantly higher reliability than competitive devices by offering 10,000 write cycles and 20 years of data retention at 105°C.
TomTom & Bosch
TomTom announces a joint autonomous driving demonstration with Bosch. TomTom provided its HD Map and RoadDNA technology to setup a demonstration on the Australian F1 Grand Prix circuit at Albert Park; these novel products are important components to enable Bosch’s demo vehicle to perform in autonomous driving mode. TomTom HD Map and RoadDNA are two revolutionary, highly accurate digital map based products helping automated vehicles precisely locate themselves on the road and plan manoeuvres, even when traveling at high speeds.
Zonar Connect
Zonar the leader in smart fleet management technology, today announced Zonar Connect, a next-generation tablet and software ecosystem that empowers commercial fleets to take greater control of their operations. Connect allows fleets to seamlessly enter the next era in fleet management technology using a smart fleet platform which is faster, more responsive, readily customizable and more user-friendly than current solutions in the commercial fleet marketplace. This ruggedized, high-performance, easy-to-use tablet delivers management tools for commercial vehicle operations including compliance, safety and efficiency monitoring.
Connect is always connected whether it is docked or undocked, representing a significant milestone in smart fleet management. For example, a driver can submit a completed EVIR inspection back to dispatch without returning to the cab of the truck. The tablet-based platform further connects vehicles, driver/operators and fleet managers with critical information such as vehicle health, efficiency, driver hours of service, performance, data capture, compliance, safety and asset utilization.
ASE ISO Certification
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc the leading provider of semiconductor assembly and test services, announced that its Chung Li, Taiwan facility has received the ISO 26262 certification from TÜV NORD, a technical service provider that helps companies to validate the safety of products and services. ISO 26262 is a standard related to the safety of electrical and electronic systems within a car and addresses possible hazards caused by malfunctioning behavior of safety-related systems, including interaction of these systems.
The ASE Chung Li site has been in the forefront of automotive IC assembly and testing, providing many of the industry’s top tier automotive device players with packaging solutions for almost two decades. The facility is also TS 16949 certified and continues to improve its quality and safety standards by undertaking global certification programs. The ISO 26262 certification will greatly benefit customers and ASE as both parties would be able to shorten the time needed to verify the functional safety of all products and enable customers to reach their intended markets quickly.
Mistubishi AI
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced that it has developed a high-speed training algorithm for deep learning that incorporates necessary inference functions for identification, recognition and prediction of unknown facts based on known facts. The new algorithm is expected to simplify the implementation of deep learning in vehicles, industrial robots and other machinery by drastically reducing memory usage and the computational time for training. It also will enable low-cost solutions in which artificial intelligence (AI) systems with training functions perform high-level inference directly within the embedded system according to the embedded system’s peripheral environment.
The algorithm reduces the training time, computational cost and memory requirements to approximately one-thirtieth of that of conventional AI, as it can achieve a further reduction of approximately 30 percent from Mitsubishi Electric’s existing Compact AI, which itself reduced the computational cost and memory requirements for image recognition by 90 percent compared to conventional AI, according to Mitsubishi Electric’s own research as of October 14.