In connected car news this week were Tesla, IAM, AZ, Mopar, Exide, Hella, Faurencia, DENSO, eSol and DMI.
Tesla Tax Credit Reduction After Monday
Since Tesla sold a totlal of 200,000 since 2010 the full tax credit continues for vehicles delivered by Dec. 31. Then it is gradually phased out. Monday (October 15) is the last day to buy a Teslas model to get the full federal electric vehicle tax credit of $7,500. Teslas ordered by Monday will be delivered by the end of the year.
IAM for AVs in AZ
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey announced that he has signed an Executive Order creating the Institute for Automated Mobility (IAM), a new consortium of private sector companies, public officials and university research faculty that will collaborate on state-of-the-art research in Arizona.
IAM will be overseen by the Arizona Commerce Authority and brings together the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, all three Arizona universities – Arizona State University, University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University – and private industry, with Intel Corporation serving as the first private-sector founding partner.
Intel Corporation played a key role in defining the structure and mission of IAM as a Founding Partner, and has research efforts already underway related to self-driving car safety and standards. Their responsibility sensitive safety (RSS) model is an open and transparent technology neutral model for the safety of AV decision making that can serve as a foundation for IAM research.
Mopar Connects FCA Cars
Mopar – the official service partner of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles – is offering their mobile Connect Service for the first time to Fiat, Abarth, Jeep, Alfa Romeo and Fiat Professional owners.
The Mopar Connect system is a set of in-car and remote functions dedicated to safety, security and vehicle assessment. Its connected services offer theft and breakdown assistance, management settings and performance monitoring. With Mopar Connect, the driver will always be connected with their vehicle. The remote assistance and control services deliver increased safety on the road giving the user complete peace of mind.
Through the Uconnect™ LIVE app, vehicles equipped with the Mopar Connect will send and receive real-time alerts in case of unexpected movement of their car, instant support in the event of an accident or breakdown, location of their parked car, vehicle status, monitor car use by others and receive smart notification reminders.
Exide Offers New Line of Chargers
Exide Technologies announced today the immediate availability of a new line of chargers for industrial battery fleet applications that provides opportunity and fast charging while minimizing infrastructure costs, service downtime and carbon footprint.
The Fury X-3 has an advanced 24/36/48V multi-voltage modular design and can charge a broad range of motive batteries from lead acid (Gel, AGM and Flooded) to Lithium Ion. It uses Silicon Carbide MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor) power technology to provide efficient high-frequency power conversion. The combination of these features, along with proprietary rapid charge profiles, can provide faster recharge times for motive power batteries. The GNB Fury X-3 chargers allow users to add more modules if additional power is needed and also provide critical operations back-up; if one module fails, the others continue to operate.
ETC Gets SRTA Contract
The State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA), based in Atlanta, Georgia, has awarded Electronic Transaction Consultants Corporation (ETC) a contract to provide roadside toll collection system implementation and maintenance services with an initial term through June 2025 and renewal options through 2035.
Hella & Faurencia Partner
HELLA, the lighting and electronics specialist and the French technology automotive supplier Faurecia, are working together on technologies for tomorrow’s vehicle interiors. For this purpose, HELLA supplies innovative products in the field of interior lighting and Faurecia contributes its expertise as a complete system integrator for vehicle interiors. The two companies have integrated the first solutions into a vehicle that can be seen from 2 to 14 October 2018 at Europe’s most important motor show, the Paris Motor Show.
Automobile megatrends such as connectivity, individualisation and autonomous driving will change the on-board experience. “HELLA is therefore developing dynamic interior lighting solutions to support these trends while offering drivers safety and comfort at the same time,” says John Kuijpers, Head of Interior & Car Body Lighting at HELLA. A concept car illustrates what these solutions can look like. Before the driver enters the vehicle, their profile and preferences are recorded and stored in the cloud, and then communicated to the cockpit. This allows for a personal greeting with light animations in the instrument panel, door trim, roof and seats. During the journey, additional lighting features are used for communication. For example, light signals can be used to display incoming calls without disturbing other passengers.
DENSO Invests in eSOL
DENSO Corporation announced it has taken a 2% equity stake in eSOL Co., Ltd., a leading developer of real-time embedded software solutions. DENSO will use eSOL’s technologies to develop software for the systems and products required for automated driving.
To improve the performance of automated driving and the utilization of external data for safety, in-vehicle electronic products must be integrated to ensure seamless control of the entire vehicle system. As in-vehicle systems become increasingly more complex, it will be necessary to update, rewrite or add software to coordinate with new electronic systems and electronic control units for automated driving. DENSO will work with eSOL as an important partner in rapid software development and will create next-generation electronic platforms through a technology advisor arrangement and personnel exchange.
DMI OnStar for V2V
A Bethesda, Maryland-based mobility company aims to hire up to 750 people in the next two years for the company’s downtown Detroit office.
DMI focuses on developing the systems that would allow vehicles to communicate with other vehicles and infrastructure. Think OnStar, but for vehicle-to-vehicle communication. The industry term for vehicles with that technology is a “connected” vehicle, which is a vehicle that has internet access.
Ford Motor Co. has said every new vehicle sold in 2019 will be connected. General Motors Co. has been working on connected systems for years. And that technology is essential for the self-driving vehicles both automakers plan to launch on public roads for public use within the next three years.
“As that market grows, so does demand for better frameworks for connected vehicles,” DMI founder and CEO Jay Sunny Bajaj, a Royal Oak native, told The Detroit News. “We’re going to be hiring quite a number of people in the next few years as demand in that market grows.”
DMI has offices around the globe. But Bajaj said his Metro Detroit roots have helped him understand the importance of developing a footprint in the city. DMI has found engineers locally to fill its already 250-person team in Detroit.
“We find a lot of people because of the deep history Detroit has with the auto industry,” he said. “We’re also finding there’s a lot of folks from around the U.S. who are more than willing to relocate to Detroit.”
Bajaj and DMI stepped into the Detroit market and connected car business just over a year ago when DMI acquired Detroit-based Lochbridge, which had been a technology unit of Compuware. Scooping up the company boosted DMI’s footprint in connected vehicles, which Bajaj expects to grow as automakers race into the next decade with autonomous vehicles in their lineups.
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