In connected car news this week were Porsche, Volvo, Chrysler, BMW, IEE, Airbiquity, Mentor, Ford, Cinemo and Bosch.
25 Volvo Electric Buses in Norway & Cars Honored
Volvo Buses has secured its largest ever order of fully electric buses. Tide Buss has placed an order for 25 Volvo 7900 Electric buses for the city of Trondheim, Norway.
Public transportation administration company AtB in Trondheim leads the way in the introduction of alternative propulsion technologies.
Volvo Cars has been recognized by the United Nations for its ground-breaking electrification strategy in the latest report from the UN’s Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.
Austin Electric Partners with COTA for Support
Austin Electric, a developer of compact, emission-free vehicles for the urban, commercial, and consumer markets, announced the company is partnering with Circuit of The Americas (COTA), America’s premier destination for professional motorsports and entertainment. Austin Electric’s Metro, the company’s flagship all-electric utility vehicle, has been selected by COTA to provide logistical support for competitions during the 2017 racing season, including the October 20-22 Formula One United States Grand Prix — the only Formula One race in the USA.
Chrysler Sponsors PTA to Raise Money Through Test Drives
The Chrysler brand announced today that it has become a Proud National Sponsor of National PTA, the nation’s oldest and largest child advocacy association. As part of the collaboration, the Chrysler brand and National PTA will support local PTAs across the country in promoting family engagement in education and raising funds for their schools through the Chrysler “Cars 4 Classroom” fundraising program, featuring the all-new Chrysler Pacifica.
Through the Chrysler brand’s “Cars 4 Classrooms” initiative, PTAs and schools have the opportunity to set up test drive fundraising events featuring the Chrysler Pacifica and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans. The brand will donate $10 to the school for every participant who takes a brief test drive. PTAs can go to cars4classrooms.com, beginning today, to learn more about hosting an event. Participating Chrysler franchised dealerships will work with PTAs, providing the Chrysler Pacifica minivans for the events.
Text To Ticket Pays To Report Texting While Driving
Text To Ticket announced that it has partnered with SeedInvest, the foremost online investing platform, opening an investment opportunity in the company to any and all interested parties. Text To Ticket, a mobile app that pays citizens to report ordinance violations, will be accepting both Regulation D and Regulation CF investments on SeedInvest.com.
Text To Ticket is exhibited at TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF conference in San Francisco.
BMW iVentures Invests in DSP Concepts
BMW i Ventures has announced a strategic investment in DSP Concepts, Inc., a startup company, developing embedded digital signal processing audio solutions and a specialist in voice user interface technologies. Christian Noske, a partner at BMW i Ventures, has joined the Company’s Board of Directors.
Realizing the need for faster development and more reliable voice recognition performance, DSP Concepts has developed a series of product offerings powered by its Audio Weaver audio processing software. These solutions accelerate time-to-market and achieve maximum performance for any product design at a lower system cost. Partners of DSP Concepts include Amlogic, Inc., Cadence Design Systems, Knowles Corporation, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments Inc., and several other leading suppliers of DSP and SoC solutions.
CalAmp Invests in ThinxNet IoT
CalAmp and ThinxNet GmbH, a leading German-based, user-driven connected car company, announced that CalAmp has made an equity investment for a minority stake in ThinxNet.
ThinxNet brings to market a host of consumer and enterprise automotive Internet of Things (IoT) smart technology. Their TankTaler application enables smartphone-based fuel payments in Germany. The application directs consumers to a network of participating gas stations and provides a range of telematics information. ThinxNet is
Schwarzenegger Presents First Electric Hummer from Kreisel Electric
Arnold Schwarzenegger presented the world’s first electric Hummer from Kreisel Electric at the opening of the company’s new research and development center in Rainbach, Mühlkreis district, Upper Austria.
Kreisel Electric developed an off-road prototype on the basis of the H1 model in just two months’ time. It is equipped with high-performance batteries from Kreisel Electric featuring a 100 kWh capacity and two electric motors on the front and back axles, with a system output of 360 kW (490 PS). The vehicle can reach speeds of up to 120 km/h and has a range of about 300 kilometers and a total weight of 3,300 kg.
The standard version of this American off-road vehicle consumes up to 24 liters of fuel for every 100 kilometers and emits up to 470g CO2 per kilometer. “With our electrified prototypes, we want to show what is possible using Kreisel technology. We will certainly not mass-produce these models. But our Hummer is a powerhouse in wolf‘s clothing, one that drives so quietly even the sheep are not disturbed,” said Markus Kreisel, one of the founders of Kreisel Electric.
Kreisel Electric opened its new high-tech research and development center as its headquarters today in Rainbach, Mühlkreis district, Upper Austria.
OmniVision Tech New ARDS Design
OmniVision Technologies, Inc., a leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions announced the availability of an automotive reference design system (ARDS) that provides a plug-and-play platform for developing automotive imaging systems. The modular approach of OmniVision’s ARDS allows automotive imaging-system and software developers to mix and match image sensors, image signal processors and long-distance serializer modules. With its compact form factor, OmniVision’s ARDS is ideally suited for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), rear video mirrors, camera monitor systems (CMS) and dash cameras.
Starr Video SmartDrive Training
Starr Companies announced an agreement with SmartDrive, a global leader in driver safety and risk management solutions, for insureds. The agreement offers a video based safety program to help mitigate and reduce auto claims.
IEEE Launches IEEE 802.3
IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA),announced the official launch of the IEEE 802.3 Beyond 10km Optical PHYs Study Group. Chartered by the IEEE 802® LAN/MAN Standards Committee (LMSC) Executive Committee, and launched under the auspices of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Working Group, the new study group aims to develop a Project Authorization Request (PAR) and Criteria for Standards Development (CSD) responses for optical solutions targeting physical distances beyond 10km for 50 Gb/s, 200 Gb/s, and 400 Gb/s Ethernet.//
Cinemo & Bosch Integrate
Cinemo, a global leader in high performance and automotive grade multimedia playback, streaming, media management, connectivity and cloud access middleware, and Bosch Car Multimedia, a supplier of intelligent solutions, that help make the integration of entertainment, navigation, telematics and driver assistance functions more flexible and easy to operate, have announced their cooperation during the upcoming International Motor Show (IAA)
DEKRA Connected Car Testing Groun in Spani
International expert organization DEKRA is building a connected car test area in Malaga, Spain, as part of their international testing network for connected and automated driving. Through the usage of test scenarios, actual cars, emulation equipment and specific lab settings, partners can already start future-proofing now. The test area will open before the end of 2017.
Airbiquity Showcases OTAmatic
Airbiquity a global leader in connected vehicle services, will showcase its OTAmatic over-the-air (OTA) software update and data management solution at ELIV Congress 2017, a networking event for automotive electronics professionals in Bonn, Germany on October 18-19. Over the course of the event, Airbiquity will demonstrate an industry-leading connected vehicle service delivery capability allowing automotive manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers to remotely and securely orchestrate and automate software updates for multiple electronic control units (ECUs) across vehicle platforms—at scale—from the cloud.
Black Enterpries TechConneXt Summit
Black Enterprise will present its annual TechConneXt Summit on Monday, Oct. 9 through Tuesday, Oct. 10, at the San Francisco Marriott Waterfront Hotel with the hackathon taking place on Saturday, Oct. 7th through Sunday, Oct. 8th.
The Summit will include a live BE SMART Hackathon presented by Toyota with 15 groups of sophomores, junior and senior students from HBCUs: Alabama A&M University, Bowie State University, Delaware State University, Dillard University, Florida A&M University, Hampton University, Howard University, Johnson C. Smith University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, North Carolina A&T University, Prairie View A&M University, Southern University and A&M College, and Tuskegee University. Each team will be made up of experienced hackers.
BE SMART Hackathon sponsor Toyota, will challenge the 15 teams to use their creativity and skills to develop a unique new program. Teams will be judged based on the viability of the program, its utility to individual users, and the efficacy of the technological platform and will be evaluated by an elite group of judges that includes Hahna Alexander, co-founder & CTO of SolePower L.L.C.; Chris Norwood, founder/executive director of Bay Area Tutoring; and Jerry Higgs, Ph.D., principal member of the technical staff for AT&T. A cash prize of $40,000 will be awarded to the winning team ($10,000 awarded to each student of the winning team); Samsung Galaxy Tablets to the second place team; and Chromebook laptops to the third place.
Mentor Supports Precision Synthesis
Mentor, a Siemens business, today announced the Precision® Synthesis product support for Silicon Mobility’s OLEA Field-Programmable Control Unit (FPCU) – a flexible electronic circuit tailored specifically for the automotive market and specialized in real-time processing and control. Silicon Mobility’s OLEA FPCU is the first ever automotive-qualified semiconductor control solution to holistically address the need for flexibility, real-time data processing, timing predictability and safety for critical applications, such as powertrain electrification, electronic power steering (EPS), braking and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).
Ford Designers Plot with HoloLens
Ford designers have been swapping some clay-sculpting steels and rakes for mixed reality headsets and visualization software that can change vehicle design elements – side mirrors, grilles, vehicle interiors and more – in mere seconds.
Designers have been piloting Microsoft HoloLens technology for a year now in Ford’s Dearborn studios, allowing them to see proposed virtual design elements as if these pieces were part of physical vehicles. They’ve been able to explore different shapes, sizes and textures of future vehicle attributes in minutes and hours instead of the weeks and months it can take to create clay models. And now, Ford is expanding this pioneering testing across the globe.
Porsche Augmented Reality App
Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA) introduced a new 3-D augmented reality app – Porsche AR-Imagine – that literally places the brand into the hands of consumers and enthusiasts. The app allows users to design their Porsche vehicle and place it digitally into their personal environments – for example, their garages or driveways. Users can also customize their virtual Porsche by choosing exterior paint colors, wheel designs, and interior options. Once built, you can drive your sports car in 3-D augmented reality. The free app, available for the iPhone and iPad from the App Store in the United States, currently showcases three Porsche vehicles: the 911 Turbo S, 718 Boxster S, and Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo.
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