BMW i Ventures announced an investment in Trifacta, a leader in data wrangling. The BMW i Ventures investment is part of a $100-million capital raise that includes other new investors Telstra Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, and ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund. The round also includes additional investment... Read more →

Micromobility (defined as shared bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters) could deliver substantial benefits to consumers and businesses around the world, including efficient and cost-effective travel, reduced traffic congestion, decreased emissions and a boost to the local economy. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials’ trip distance estimates, scooters are... Read more →

A team from Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, the University of Michigan, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a high-resolution, bottom-up emissions map that includes every building and road in the Los Angeles megacity basin for a total of 176... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $68.5 million for early-stage research of advanced vehicle technologies. (DE-FOA-0001919) This new funding opportunity announcement (FOA) seeks research projects to address priorities in the following areas: batteries and electrification; materials; technology integration and energy efficient mobility systems; energy-efficient commercial off-road... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation and JapanTaxi Co., Ltd., jointly with KDDI Corporation and Accenture, have developed a taxi dispatch support system that predicts demand for taxi services, combining data from taxi service logs with predictions of demographics made by location-based big data from smartphones as well as event information. The companies... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has launched two initiatives—High Performance Computing for Mobility (HPC4Mobility) and Big Data Solutions for Mobility—which will utilize the computing capabilities of the national labs to find solutions to real-world transportation energy challenges. The $2-million, multi-lab research initiative will develop new algorithms and big data... Read more →

Didi Chuxing, the world’s leading mobile transportation platform, will make aggregated, anonymized data from its vehicle network available to facilitate transportation AI research worldwide. Every day, DiDi receives more than 25 million orders, collects more than 70TB of new route data, processes more than 4500TB of data, and obtains more... Read more →

Under the “data.camp” slogan, Audi has started an employee training campaign focused on big data and artificial intelligence. Expertise in these areas is an essential basis for the development of cars driving in piloted mode, intelligent robots and digital mobility services. One important element here is Audi’s cooperation with the... Read more →

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are partnering with the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to develop UrbanSense, a comprehensive sensor network and real-time visualization platform that helps cities evaluate trends in urban activity. The project, initiated by ORNL’s Urban Dynamics Institute (UDI), centers on... Read more →

DENSO Corporation, Ericsson, Intel Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), NTT DOCOMO, INC., Toyota InfoTechnology Center Co., Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corporation have initiated the formation of the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium. The objective of the consortium is to develop an ecosystem for connected cars to support emerging services... Read more →

Volkswagen’s new incubator program at its Transparent Factory in Dresden is starting with six mobility teams. The teams now have 200 days to take their innovative ideas and develop mobility products or services which are ready for the market. Alongside Volkswagen mobility experts they will be supported by Group It’s... Read more →

Autonomous vehicle technology company Nauto (earlier post) closed a $159-million Series B financing round, led by a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp. and Greylock Partners. Other participants include previous strategic investors BMW iVentures, General Motors Ventures, Toyota AI Ventures and the venture unit of global financial services and insurance provider... Read more →

Volkswagen IT is cooperating with US technology company NVIDIA with a view to expanding its competence in the field of deep learning. At the Volkswagen Data Lab—named the Group’s center of excellence for AI and data analysis—IT experts are developing advanced AI systems with deep learning. The Volkswagen Group is... Read more →

The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) is exploring blockchain and distributed ledger technology (BC/DL) (earlier post) for use in the development of a new mobility ecosystem that could accelerate development of autonomous driving technology. TRI is collaborating with the MIT Media Lab (MIT ML) and other industry partners to foster a... Read more →

Honda Research Institute (HRI), a Honda R&D subsidiary, and Boston University have agreed to begin joint research in the area of data security and privacy for artificial intelligence (AI) research. Honda intends to develop Cooperative Intelligence: AI that cooperates with people which will 1) empower: expanding the potential of people;... Read more →

Volvo Cars is urging governments and car makers to share traffic data in order to improve global traffic safety, Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive, told a conference at the European Commission in Brussels on Monday. Sharing anonymized data related to traffic safety in real-time can provide a strong boost... Read more →

Ford Motor Company is investing $1.2 billion in three Michigan manufacturing facilities to strengthen its leadership in trucks and SUVs and support the company’s expansion to an auto and mobility company. Ford is investing $850 million in Michigan Assembly Plant to retool the plant to build the all-new Ford Ranger... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation have agreed to collaborate on developing, verifying, and standardizing technology in the connected car field, combining the automotive vehicle-related technologies of Toyota with the information and communication technologies(ICT) of NTT Group companies. Toyota and the NTT Group (one of the world’s... Read more →

Based on the benefits of its own analysis of anonymized driving data from its plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicle customers, Ford is encouraging the adoption of a standard way to analyze driving data for OEMs and regulatory agencies to understand the real world electric driving usage in comparison to... Read more →

IBM and BMW Group researchers are collaborating to explore the role of Watson cognitive computing in personalizing the driving experience and creating more intuitive driver support systems for cars of the future. As part of an agreement between the two companies, the BMW Group will collocate a team of researchers... Read more →

In Japan, Nissan announced a new, comprehensive strategy to transform its customer aftersales experience through innovative technology and enhanced services. The company anticipates that, as a result, connected car services and greater choice in accessories and personalization will increasingly drive growth in its aftersales business, anticipated to contribute 25% of... Read more →

A test deployment of a new hub-and-shuttle urban mobility system will take place on the University of Michigan’s North Campus. Its creators say the proposed system could deliver riders to their destinations in as little as half the time of the existing bus system at a lower cost, eventually using... Read more →

General Motors and IBM are partnering to bring the power of OnStar and IBM Watson together to create OnStar Go, the auto industry’s first cognitive mobility platform. Starting in early 2017, OnStar is expected to give millions of GM drivers the ability to connect and interact with their favorite brands.... Read more →

Leading geographic information systems (GIS) company Esri is partnering with Waze, the free, crowdsourced traffic and navigation app, to make it easier for governments to begin building intelligent transportation systems in their communities. Governments already using the Esri ArcGIS platform can now quickly and easily exchange data through the Waze... Read more →

Autonomous vehicle technology company Nauto has entered into strategic agreements with three major auto companies, including BMW i Ventures and Toyota Research Institute, as well as with Allianz Ventures, part of the leading global financial service provider and insurance company Allianz Group. These companies have invested in Nauto and are... Read more →

NVIDIA and FANUC Corporation are collaborating to implement artificial intelligence on the FANUC Intelligent Edge Link and Drive (FIELD) system to increase robotics productivity and bring new capabilities to automated factories worldwide. Adding AI to the FIELD system will give robots the ability to teach themselves to do tasks faster... Read more →

Leading automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler has signed a multi-year strategic partnership agreement with IBM to accelerate the digital transformation of its entire operations and customer solutions using Watson’s cognitive intelligence and insight from billions of sensors that make up the Internet of Things (IoT). Schaeffler manufactures millions of precision-engineered... Read more →

On the eve of the Paris Motor Show, HERE, the high-definition mapping and location services business company acquired by Audi, BMW and Daimler (earlier post), announced next-generation vehicle-sourced data services. The HERE Open Location Platform will harness real-time data generated by the on-board sensors of connected vehicles—even from competing car... Read more →

A study led by MIT researchers, focused on New York City, suggests that using mobile-phone data to track people’s movement provides an even deeper picture of exposure to pollution in urban settings than by studying air-quality levels in fixed places. Their open-access paper is published in the ACS journal Environmental... Read more →

At the Baidu World Conference in Beijing, Baidu CEO Robin Li together with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced a partnership to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation of a cloud-to-car autonomous car platform for local Chinese and global car makers. NVIDIA and Baidu have a long history of working... Read more →

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. has developed software technology that uses multiple GPUs to enable high-speed deep learning powered by the application of supercomputer software parallelization technology. This newly developed technology was implemented in the Caffe deep learning framework, where, in a test measuring learning time using AlexNet on 64 GPU-equipped computers,... Read more →

UPS has achieved its goal of driving 1 billion miles in its alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet one year earlier than planned, and marked more than 10 years of learning from its “Rolling Laboratory” of now more than 7,200 alternative fuel vehicles. UPS’ long-term commitment to sustainability is transforming... Read more →

Internet of Things (IoT) platform company Drayson Technologies is partnering with Inmarsat and courier company Gophr to capture real-time data on carbon monoxide pollution levels in London. A recent report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) estimated that around... Read more →

GE Aviation will enter the Farnborough Air Show on Monday with a wave of new product and technology introductions while expanding its factory network to deliver on a record $154-billion industrial backlog of product and services. From running the first full GE9X engine for the Boeing 777X (earlier post)—fired more... Read more →

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that Columbus, OH has been selected as the winner of the US Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. (Earlier post.) As winner of the Challenge, Columbus will receive up to $40 million from US DOT and up to $10 million from Paul G. Allen’s... Read more →

MAN Truck & Bus AG, part of Volkswagen Truck & Bus, is investing up to $8.5 million in the US start-up FR8 Revolution Inc. (“Fr-eight”). Silicon-Valley-based FR8 has developed a comprehensive “operating system” for a connected transportation industry that will be launched in the second quarter of 2016. The IT... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have introduced a new method for identifying NOx emissions hotspots using high-fidelity Lagrangian vehicle data to explore spatial interactions that may influence emissions production. Their study, published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, finds that the two transit buses under study—a conventional... Read more →

Pregnant women, children and those with medical conditions in The Gambia—one of Africa’s smallest, poorest countries—may have better access to healthcare through an expansion of a Ford Smart Mobility pilot program. Ford has equipped 50 motorcycles serving Riders for Health with sensor technology so the medical services group can collect... Read more →

The University of Michigan is collaborating with IBM to develop and deliver “data-centric” supercomputing systems designed to increase the pace of scientific discovery in fields as diverse as aircraft and rocket engine design, cardiovascular disease treatment, materials physics, climate modeling and cosmology. The system is designed to enable high performance... Read more →

At the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference 2016, the company introduced the NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPU, the most advanced hyperscale data center accelerator ever built. The latest addition to the NVIDIA Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform, the Tesla P100 enables a new class of servers that can deliver the performance of hundreds... Read more →

Toyota is launching a new company—Toyota Connected, Inc.—to significantly expand the company’s capabilities in the fields of data management and data services development. The new company will serve as a data science hub for Toyota’s global operations and will support a broad range of consumer-, business- and government- facing initiatives.... Read more →

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will receive a first-of-a-kind brain-inspired supercomputing platform for deep learning developed by IBM Research. Based on a breakthrough neurosynaptic computer chip called IBM TrueNorth (earlier post), the scalable platform will process the equivalent of 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses and consume the energy... Read more →

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, joined by Barbara Bennett, President and COO of Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc. and Rick Clemmer CEO of NXP Semiconductors, announced the seven finalists for the US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Smart City Challenge. (Earlier post.) The USDOT has pledged up to $40 million (funding... Read more →

ViriCiti B.V., a provider of telematics systems for electric city buses and trucks, and Simacan B.V., a provider of real-time traffic information, are partnering to develop a new online tool that predicts the energy usage and savings per route by driving electric. The EV Fleet Analyzer provides insights into when... Read more →

At CES 2016 last week, IAV and Microsoft demonstrated a connected highly automated driving (CHAD) vehicle capable of connecting with the Microsoft Azure cloud and Windows 10 to enable communication that helps prevent vehicle and pedestrian accidents and increases driving comfort and convenience. This vehicle-2-x communication (V2X) connectivity approach uses... Read more →

Ford is piloting an on-demand Dynamic Shuttle service for its Dearborn, Michigan, employees this month, providing a new mobility solution featuring smart ride-hailing technology with premium customized shuttles, applying insights from earlier experiments and research with global urban commuters. Dynamic Shuttle—a Ford Smart Mobility experiment announced in January (earlier post)—supports... Read more →

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx launched a Smart City Challenge to create a fully integrated, first-of-its-kind city that uses data, technology and creativity to shape how people and goods move in the future. The USDOT will make an award of up to $40 million to one mid-sized city that can... Read more →

Fujitsu Laboratories has begun a field trial that aims to reduce congestion around major events, stadiums, and shopping centers through behavioral guidance. This field trial uses a smartphone application that, based on the expected congestion when people return home from major events, proposes behavior or how to spend time best... Read more →

Jaguar Land Rover and the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are jointly funding an £11-million (US$17-million) research program to develop fully autonomous cars. The research will take place at ten UK universities and the Transport Research Laboratory. As part of its strategic partnership with Jaguar Land Rover,... Read more →

The US Department of Energy announced up to $70 million in funding (DE-FOA-0001263) for the next Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which will be focused on smart manufacturing. With this investment, the DOE aims to support research and development advancements that can reduce the cost of deployment for technologies such... Read more →