Connected Car News: Ford, ChargePoint, SMC, Trustonic, MediaTek, Drive.ai, Car360, Cellcontrol, Panasonic, Magna, Globetouch, Cypress Semi

In connected car news this week were Ford, ChargePoint, SMC, Trustonic, MediaTek, Drive.ai, Car360, Upstream Security, Cellcontrol, Panasonic, Magna, Globetouch, Cypress Semi and Omoove.

Cargo Vending in Uber/Lyft

It was bound to happen, sooner or later besides providing water and breath mints to ride hailing passengers, a new service offers a mini vending machine with app to enable passengers with snacks and essentials. Cargo provides the merchandize and the equipment (a clear dispensing box) to drivers for free. The company calls it “A premium, connected in-car experience.”

Weiner Mobility

Oscar Mayer set the new standard for hot dog quality by announcing a major recipe overhaul across its total portfolio on May 1^st of this year. These radical changes made Oscar Mayer the first national brand to remove all added nitrates and nitrites, by-products and artificial preservatives from the meat in its entire line of hot dogs, all without changing the price. With this launch, Oscar Mayer is now going to great lengths all summer long to get a new, delicious hot dog in hands across America.

With that mission in mind, Oscar Mayer is expanding its WienerFleet. The fleet currently consists of the Wienermobile, WienerMini and WienerRover. The team has now added the WienerCycle and WienerDrone. These five unique vehicles will set off on a journey to no better place than Weiner, Arkansas for the ultimate Fourth of July celebration, bringing better hot dogs to the entire town.

Avery Dennison Labels Yongle Tape

Avery Dennison Corporation  announced it has completed the acquisition of Yongle Tape Company Ltd., a manufacturer of specialty tapes and related products in a variety of industrial markets, from its management and private equity firm ShawKwei & Partners.

Headquartered in China’s Hebei Province, with production facilities in Zhuozhou and Shanghai, Yongle Tape is China’s leading manufacturer of cable harnessing and insulation tapes. The company is a key supplier to both Chinese and global automakers, with a portfolio of high-value products that are specified by the automotive OEMs and their suppliers.

Yongle Tape will operate within Avery Dennison’s Industrial and Healthcare Materials business group, working in close collaboration with the company’s global Performance Tapes and Fastener Solutions businesses.

Ford Chariot Shuttle/GoBike

Ford is launching its enterprise commuter shuttle service, Chariot,  It will  serve companies wanting to provide transportation solutions to their employees — from last-mile service, to and from Park & Rides and transit hubs, to providing direct service to and from underserved neighborhoods. Chariot will offer Seattle residents an additional option for commuting to work. Its shuttles can hold significantly more commuters than a typical single-passenger vehicle, with the same physical and carbon footprint, and it’s a fast, reliable and affordable transportation alternative. Going forward, we’d like to see Chariot become available to a larger population of commuters.

Ford, in collaboration with Motivate, is launching Ford GoBike – a regional bike-share network designed to enhance sustainable transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ford GoBike is expanding the area’s existing bike-share program to 546 stations and 7,000 bikes – serving San Francisco, San Jose and East Bay; riders can access GoBike through the FordPass app.

Designed for the hilly urban environment of San Francisco, Ford GoBikes are built to be comfortable and easy to ride.

ChargePoint to Operaate GE’s EV Charging Network

ChargePoint, Inc. the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) charging network announced that it has obtained a license to become the exclusive operator of GE’s EV charging network, adding more than 1,800 commercial and about 8,000 residential charging spots to its network. With drivers and customers in mind, ChargePoint will maintain GE’s existing software and commercial charging spots, helping to make the transition to ChargePoint as easy and seamless as possible for existing clients and drivers.

SMC Demos C-V2X

The Smart Mobility Consortium (SMC) has demonstrated for the first time in Hong Kong the use of Cellular-Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology for connected cars.As a critical low-latency application towards 5G, the C-V2X technology enables vehicles to have tactile exchange of information with other vehicles, pedestrians, and network infrastructure – bringing significant enhancements to driving assistance, traffic management and road safety for vehicles and pedestrians. The demonstration ran on HKT’s C-V2X trial network, with frequency bands 2.6GHz for Vehicle-To-Infrastructure (V2I) communications and 5.9GHz for Vehicle-To-Vehicle (V2V) communications.

Guests at the ITS Asia-Pacific Forum 2017 witnessed the demonstration on a regular vehicle fitted with C-V2X technology. It involved multiple scenarios of how connected vehicles can enhance road safety through:

• V2V Do Not Pass Warning (DNPW) – DNPW warns the driver when a vehicle cannot safely cross to the opposite side of traffic to overtake another vehicle because of oncoming traffic.
• V2P Vulnerable Road User (VRU) – In a non-line-of-sight situation, the vehicle can detect pedestrians’ presence in a “danger zone” and alert the driver with ‘Pedestrian Crossing Warning’.
• V2V Blind Spot Warning / Lane Change Warning – The host vehicle driver can be warned whenever another vehicle on the adjacent lane is in a blind spot of the host vehicle.
• V2I Forward Collison (Emergency Stop) – Alerts can be sent to other vehicle drivers in the vicinity via a roadside unit in case the host vehicle has to make an emergency stop.
• V2I Intersection Collision Warning – A warning will be issued when two vehicles are approaching the intersection point out of the V2V communications coverage or in a non-line-of-sight condition.

Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI) was founded by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 2000.

Trustonic Works with MediaTek SoCs

Trustonic announced a collaboration with systems-on-chips (SoCs) specialist MediaTek to provide the automotive industry with highly secure telematics and in-car entertainment systems for connected vehicles. This partnership ensures that security is foundational, in an environment that has seen massive increases in external connectivity and in the number of features delivered by systems connected to in-car networks.

Trustonic offers a hardware-secured operating system which is completely isolated from the device operating system. This makes it, and trusted applications residing in it, immune to all software threats resident on the device. The Root of Trust also ensures that a trusted identity is preserved within the device, preventing fraudulent use or copying. Car manufacturers can therefore be assured that the MediaTek systems that they integrate into cars, and the applications and data stored on them, are protected.

Backer Tracker

Car360 Funded

Car360, a company at the forefront of bringing computer vision and augmented reality to the auto industry, announced it has completed a $3.55 million Series A round of financing. Atlanta-based BIP Capital (recently merged with Accelerant Venture Capital) led the round, with participation from existing investor, Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments, and new investor Service Provider Capital. Atlanta technology veteran John Hanger joined Car360 in March 2017 as CEO to develop a go-to-market strategy and drive immediate funding opportunities. The company plans to use the funding to grow its team by up to 60 positions in Atlanta to expand sales and marketing and to execute the product roadmap.

The Car360 platform utilizes computer vision and augmented reality to enable interactive visualization of cars and related data, dramatically improving user experiences that were previously characterized by time- and bandwidth-consuming searches through countless still photos or long videos and arcane condition reports. With Car360, users can intuitively and quickly navigate and digest the vehicle imagery and data of interest. Companies that can benefit from Car360’s platform include automotive manufacturers, dealers, professional car photographers, auctions, inspection companies and insurance claim processors. Car360 has numerous global automotive software soltion providers as customers, including Canada’s autoTRADER.ca.

Upstream Security Funded

Upstream Security, a cloud-based cyber-security platform for connected and autonomous vehicles, recently completed their seed round, securing $2M in an investment led by Glilot Capital Partners, a venture capital fund specializing in Enterprise Software that was recently ranked as the 3rd best performing fund in the world (according to Preqin), with investment by Maniv Mobility.

Cabin Seeded for Sleeping While Mobile

Cabin the first hospitality transportation company on a mission to make the most of every waking and sleeping moment, today announced it has secured $3.3 million in seed financing and launched a moving hotel. Cabin’s one-of-a-kind overnight travel experience enables people to reclaim their time while saving money by consolidating both transportation and accommodation into one simple and delightful experience.

Initially run as a pilot called SleepBus in early 2016, Cabin sold out of tickets in three days and amassed a waitlist of over 20,000 people seeking to be “teleported” to regional destinations up to 500 miles from home. Led by Founders Fund’s FF Angel with participation from SV Angel, Floodgate, Box Group, Brainchild Holdings, Justin Rosenstein, StartX, FJ Labs, and 1517 Fund, the new round of funding will allow Cabin to scale operations both on a regional and national level.

Cellcontrol for Insurance Breaks

Cypress Semiconductor  announced it is sampling new devices in its Traveo™automotive microcontroller (MCU) family that provides secure, high-speed networking for classic instrument cluster applications. The new MCUs support the Controller Area Network Flexible Data-rate (CAN FD) standard for high-speed, in-vehicle networking, allowing large amounts of data to be exchanged between each CAN node. Integrated enhanced Secure Hardware Extension (eSHE) support enables the devices to secure data on in-vehicle networks and prevent unauthorized connections to electronic control units (ECUs). The new MCUs offer advanced system features, high-quality sound and graphics, and can drive up to six traditional mechanical gauges.

Telit & OT-Morpho

Telit, a global enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT), together with OT–Morpho, a world leader in digital security & identification technologies, announced today that the companies are partnering together to solve the challenges facing the mass adoption of IoT via today’s traditional deployment methodology.

The two companies are partnering to bring to market a next generation approach that will allow the digital distribution of mobile subscriptions on demand to IoT connectivity modules. The joint solution will enable global interoperability, reduced total cost of ownership for end-customers and improved time-to-market for enterprises and device makers looking to roll out large-scale IoT projects.

Together, Telit and OT-Morpho will leverage their combined technical expertise as well as their worldwide customer and carrier eco-systems to jumpstart the IoT narrowband cellular economy. The focus will be on streamlining the provisioning and subscription management process for next generation Cat-M and NB-IoT connectivity.

Sales Where U At

General Motors Fleet customers can spend more time interfacing with clients thanks to a strategic agreement with MapAnything, Inc., the “Where” Company and leader in geo-productivity and intelligence for business.

MapAnything, a Salesforce Ventures Portfolio company, has launched MapAnything Live to GM Fleet customers. It’s a new connectivity solution that combines telematics fleet management and customer relationship management (CRM) software to streamline routes and automate critical business processes. The solution is available by subscription and is powered through GM’s OnStar embedded hardware.