In connected car news this week were Tesla, Audi, CARB, Solid Power, NFC, VW, Momentum IoT, Migo, Renesas and OpenSynergy.
Tesla Supercharging Expanded and Nixed
To help hurricane escapees Tesla is offering free supercharging extending the software limited battery distance of Tesla models with 60 kWh up to 75 kWh, like the company did last year for Hurricane Irma. For the rest of the world Tesla in ended unlimited supercharging, for all new Tesla owners today.
Audi Reveal 9/18
Audi will celebrate a historic world premiere in California on September 18, 2018: the brand will be presenting the Audi e-tron – its first all-electric-drive production model – during its “The Charge” event.
CARB gives POLA $41.446 Million for Creener Freight
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has preliminarily awarded $41 million to the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) for the Zero-Emission and Near Zero-Emission Freight Facilities (ZANZEFF) project. The total project cost for this initial phase is $82,568,872, with partners providing 50.2%, or $41,446,612 in match funding.
The Zero and Near Zero-Emission Freight Facilities project — proposed with support from Toyota, Kenworth, and Shell — provides a large-scale “shore to store” plan and a hydrogen fuel-cell-electric technology framework for freight facilities to structure operations for future goods movement. The initiative will help reduce emissions by 465 metric tons of Greenhouse Gas and 0.72 weighted tons of NOx, ROG and PM10. The Zero-Emission and Near Zero-Emission Freight Facilities project is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment — particularly in disadvantaged communities.
Solid Power Powered by $20 Million
Louisville, Colo.-based Solid Power, an industry leader in safe, high-energy, and cost competitive all solid-state batteries (ASSB), announced that it has closed $20 million in a Series A investment round.
ASSB have generated substantial interest for mobile power applications due to their ability to provide greater run-time per charge and excellent overall product reliability and safety. The automotive industry, in its pursuit of vehicle electrification, is particularly interested in ASSB to boost vehicle range, while using an overall safer and simpler energy storage system as compared to current state of the art lithium-ion batteries.
NFC Forum & VDA Sign Agreement
The NFC Forum announced the signing of a liaison agreement with the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) and the addition of nine new members to the world’s leading standards and advocacy association for Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.
The liaison agreement states that the NFC Forum and VDA will work together to co-develop NFC use cases and requirements toward the goal of enabling NFC interfaces and technology integration to support the creation of exciting, new consumer products and services for vehicles worldwide. Relevant applications include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing, flexible and secure car access and the enabling of smart mobility solutions. VDA promotes the standardization of interfaces between mobile devices and automotive electronic control units ensuring long-term interoperability between NFC-enabled smart cars and smart devices.
VW Buys into QuantumScape Sold State Batteries
The Volkswagen Group has finalized its stake in the California technology company QuantumScape. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius) had no objection to the transaction. Volkswagen is investing $100 million in the battery specialist, thus becoming its largest automotive shareholder. Volkswagen will now take a seat on the board of directors of QuantumScape. Furthermore, Volkswagen and QuantumScape have formed a joint venture to enable an industrial level of production of solid-state batteries.
Volkswagen and QuantumScape are combining their strengths in the new joint venture: Volkswagen is contributing its production expertise and know-how in scaling projects, while QuantumScape brings its technology leadership in the field of solid-state batteries to the joint venture. The shared goal is to enable an industrial level of production of solid-state batteries. One target is to establish a production line for these batteries by 2025.
Momemtum IoT Shipping LTE-M Devices
Momentum IoT, the leader in cloud-managed telematics for mixed fleets announced that it is the first major U.S. fleet telematics provider to ship LTE-M devices, available for immediate delivery.
The Company’s solutions take advantage of the unique capabilities of the advanced LTE-M standard to offer unparalleled benefits to fleet managers: lower device complexity, better coverage, higher security, and low power consumption.
By developing on LTE-M, Momentum IoT avoided the technical debt and cost of supporting older formats and unneeded complexity. Momentum IoT’s 4th Generation Cloud Managed IoT devices deploy without custom development. No version control issues, no deployment delays
Hyundai CRADLE Invests in MIgo
Hyundai CRADLE, Hyundai Motor Company’s corporate venturing and open innovation business, invests in Migo, a leading privately held Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) company based in Seattle that has developed an on-demand ride discovery application. The investment expands Hyundai’s existing portfolio of mobility and technology partners to further the development of innovations that will enhance the customer transportation experience.
Migo is a free app available for download in the Apple App store that allows customers to discover and hail multiple modes of personal transportation without having to jump from one app to another. Migo includes ride-share, car-share, bike-share, public transportation and more on a single platform to allow consumers to easily discover and hail the best option to help them get from A to B. The Migo app provides real-time pricing and wait times. Migo for iPhone is available in the U.S. and Canada and has been used in more than 75 cities including Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Toronto, Miami, Denver, Atlanta, Boston and more.
Renesas & OpenSynergy SoC
Renesas Electronics Corporation, an industry-leading supplier of automotive semiconductor solutions, and OpenSynergy, a market leader in automotive hypervisors, today announced that the Renesas’ system-on-chip (SoC) R-Car H3 and OpenSynergy’s COQOS Hypervisor SDK have been adopted on Parrot Faurecia’s automotive safe multi-display cockpit. The latest version of Android™ is the guest OS of the COQOS Hypervisor, which executes both the instrument cluster functionality, including safety-relevant display elements based on Linux, and the Android-based in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) on a single R-Car H3 SoC chip. The COQOS Hypervisor SDK shares the R-Car H3 GPU with Android and Linux allowing applications to be presented on multiple displays, realizing a powerful and flexible cockpit system.
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