Volkswagen has revealed some of the features of the updated Passat, which will launch later this year. Among the technical updates are an upgrade to the plug-in hybrid system in the Passat GTE that extends the all-electric range to to up to around 55 km (34 miles) in the WLTP... Read more →

Porsche’s new eighth generation of the Porsche 911 features Porsche Wet Mode, an innovative assistance system introduced exclusively for the 911. The system includes a function for detecting significant wet road conditions and a corresponding vehicle setup for increased driving stability on wet road surfaces. Wet Mode was developed to... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz has selected NVIDIA to help realize its vision for next-generation vehicles. The partnership builds on a longstanding collaboration between the two companies. Both companies, said NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang, agree that the car of the future must be software defined—starting from creating the software for today’s requirements,... Read more →

In a briefing at CES 2019, Dr. Gill Pratt, Toyota Research Institute (TRI) CEO and Toyota Motor Corporation Fellow said that one of TRI’s most significant breakthroughs this year was the creation of blended envelope control for its Guardian driver assistance system. The control combines and coordinates the skills and... Read more →

At CES 2019, NVIDIA announced the first commercially available Level 2+ automated driving system, NVIDIA DRIVE AutoPilot, which integrates multiple breakthrough AI technologies that will enable supervised self-driving vehicles to go into production by next year. At CES 2019, Continental and ZF announced Level 2+ self-driving solutions based on NVIDIA... Read more →

Innoviz Technologies and HARMAN International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. focused on connected technologies for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, have formed a strategic partnership to make Innoviz’s high-performing, solid-state and mass-producible LiDAR solutions (earlier post) available to OEMs globally. HARMAN will leverage Innoviz’s LiDAR offerings to... Read more →

At CES this year, ZF is highlighting its sensor portfolio which can detect vehicle surroundings and thereby help to enhance the safety of conventional and automated vehicles. The resulting architecture—including a new, full-range radar, solid state LiDAR, innovative cameras and acoustic sensors—are combined with a powerful and scalable NVIDIA platform... Read more →

In advance of CES, Velodyne Lidar, Inc. introduced new technology that will serve as the cornerstone of future advanced driving safety systems. The Alpha Puck, Velarray & VelaDome. Velodyne unveiled the VelaDome, a compact embeddable lidar that provides an ultra-wide 180° x 180° image for near-object avoidance. The compact sensor... Read more →

Volkswagen is bundling its entire range of intelligent driver assistance technologies under the new umbrella brand IQ.DRIVE. Before Christmas, Volkswagen will be launching a 360° marketing campaign for the new brand in Germany, consisting of TV commercial and posters as well as printed and online advertisements. Other European markets are... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation announced that the total global number of vehicles equipped with Toyota Safety Sense (TSS), the Toyota-developed preventive safety package, has reached the 10 million unit mark approximately three and a half years after its March 2015 introduction. Toyota anticipates that within this year, three million vehicles in... Read more →

An IIHS study of General Motors vehicles with optional front crash prevention systems found that GM vehicles with autobrake and forward collision warning had 43% fewer police-reported front-to-rear crashes of all severities and 64% fewer front-to-rear crashes with injuries than the same vehicles without any front crash prevention technology. For... Read more →

Daimler and Bosch announced the successful premiere of their joint Automated Valet Parking pilot in Beijing. The infrastructure-supported driverless parking technology, which made its debut in the parking garage at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart in 2017 (earlier post), marks the first pilot of its kind in China. Automated Valet... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz Trucks unveiled the new Actros truck, featuring Active Drive Assist, with which Mercedes-Benz Trucks puts partially automated driving into series production. The new Active Drive Assist can brake, accelerate and steer independently. The new Actros can be ordered as of the IAA 2018 Commercial Vehicles Show and the first... Read more →

LeddarTech has delivered the first A-samples of its LeddarCore LCA2 system-on-chip (SoC) (earlier post) to select automotive partners which will be publicly disclosed at a later date this year. The LCA2 is the autonomous vehicle industry’s first 3D solid-state LiDAR (SSL) SoC and is available now to Tier-1 automotive manufacturers... Read more →

Volvo Trucks North America announced today the successful on-highway demonstration of its truck platooning technology. The company has been working closely with FedEx and the North Carolina Turnpike Authority (NCTA) to expand on-highway operations of Volvo’s Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) (earlier post) in the United States on N.C. 540,... Read more →

DARPA’s Ground X-Vehicle Technologies (GXV-T) program (earlier post) aims to improve mobility, survivability, safety, and effectiveness of future combat vehicles without piling on armor. Several Phase 2 contract awardees recently demonstrated advances on a variety of potentially groundbreaking technologies to meet the program’s goals. We’re looking at how to enhance... Read more →

A recent analysis by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) foundthat Subaru’s EyeSight system (earlier post) cut the rate of likely pedestrian-related insurance claims by a statistically significant 35%. According to IIHS, 2016 data show pedestrian deaths account for 16% of all auto collision... Read more →

Supplier Hyundai Mobis plans to develop a full range of sensors to support autonomous by 2020 with the goal of leading the global market. The company made the announcement at its new proving ground, which opened last June in Seosan, South Korea, as a test bed for new technologies. The... Read more →

Nissan has sold more 120,000 vehicles featuring ProPilot technology globally. The company will now expand the availability of ProPILOT to additional models, including the Nissan Rogue Sport in the US and the Qashqai in Canada, beginning in late 2018. The Rogue, including the Rogue Sport, is Nissan’s top-selling nameplate in... Read more →

Magna and its partner Innoviz Technologies (earlier post) will supply the BMW Group with solid-state LiDAR for upcoming autonomous vehicle production platforms. The new-business award is one of the first in the auto industry to include solid-state LiDAR for serial production. While Magna has demonstrated via its MAX4 platform the... Read more →

Continental is expanding its global development activities for the safe launch of automated driving. The engineers are now testing their prototype vehicles on autobahns in Lower Saxony under real traffic conditions. The prototypes are always monitored and operated by a development expert in the driver’s seat. Continental is developing sensors,... Read more →

Bosch’s highway assist system, which combines the ACC Stop & Go and Lane Centering functions to control the vehicle’s speed, acceleration and braking, is installed on all the vehicles in the Maserati MY 2018 range. With the smart combination of the two functions and optimized longitudinal and lateral guidance during... Read more →

Engineers from Loughborough University in the UK and Jaguar Land Rover have proposed a coordinated control architecture for motion management in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to increase safety and comfort across all vehicles, regardless of ADAS specifics. They published their proposal in an open-access paper in the IEEE/CAA Journal... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group is readying autonomous parking functionality for deployment in series production vehicles in 2020. Group brands Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche are currently testing autonomous parking at Hamburg Airport. In the test scenario, users can book a parking space at Hamburg Airport from home using an app and simply... Read more →

Ford has unveiled the all-new Ford Focus. The new Focus features a broad suite of Ford advanced driver assistance technologies and advanced EcoBoost gasoline and EcoBlue diesel engines offering a 10% fuel-efficiency improvement across the range. Powertrains are supported by standard Auto Start-Stop for reduced running costs and a six-speed... Read more →

BMW i Ventures has invested in Blackmore Sensors and Analytics, Inc., a leading developer of frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) lidar for the automotive industry. Low-cost lidar sensors are required to enable self-driving vehicles and, in addition to being more cost-effective, Blackmore’s FMCW lidar technology has several competitive advantages over traditional... Read more →

Ford launched Ford Co-Pilot360, a suite of standard advanced driver-assist technologies that includes automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot information system, lane keeping system, rear backup camera and auto high beam lighting. >Ford Co-Pilot360 will roll out across Ford’s new passenger cars, SUVs and trucks up to F-150... Read more →

Renesas Electronics Corporation announced its new R-Car V3H system-on-chip (SoC) that delivers high computer vision performance and AI processing at industry-leading low power levels, targeting automotive front cameras for use in mass-produced Level 3 (conditional automation) and Level 4 (high automation) autonomous vehicles. The new R-Car V3H system-on-chip (SoC) is... Read more →

Kia Motors revealed the new Ceed ahead of its world debut at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show. Among its enhancements, the new Ceed is available with Lane Following Assist, a ‘Level Two’ autonomous driving technology. Lane Following Assist tracks vehicles in front of the Ceed in traffic, and identifies... Read more →

Audi has unveiled the second-generation A7 Sportback, which is the essence of Audi‘s new design language. The four-door coupé brings the show car design of the prologue studies (earlier post) to production. The drive system features a new mild-hybrid system (MHEV) as standard. At market introduction the coupé will be... Read more →

Hyundai Mobis will begin mass-producing iMEB (integrated MOBIS Electronic Brake) and RSPA (Remote Smart Parking Assist) systems respectively at its Cheonan plant and Jincheon plant in Korea. Hyundai Mobis is working to elevate its status from a late starter to a global leader in braking and parking assist technologies. The... Read more →

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has developed what it believes to be the industry’s highest performing automotive camera technology. The technology detects various object types at distances of up to about 100 meters, enabling drivers to receive advanced warning for enhanced driving safety in coming mirrorless cars. The solution, which is based... Read more →

Toyota unveiled the new fifth-generation Avalon at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Avalon received an all-encompassing makeover by Toyota’s US-based design, engineering, and manufacturing entities at Calty Design Research Inc. (Calty) in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Toyota Motor North America Research and Development (TMNA R&D) in Saline, Michigan;... Read more →

In addition to showcasing its new lineup of consumer products such as 4K OLED televisions, smartphones and wireless noise-cancelling stereo headsets, Sony used CES to introduce its “safety cocoon” concept, which signifies the creation of an area of enhanced safety around a vehicle where it can monitor and detect the... Read more →

Continental is adding a further safety level to highly automated driving in the form of a specific electronics architecture. In addition to a central control unit for automated driving—the Assisted & Automated Driving Control Unit—the technology company uses a Safety Domain Control Unit (SDCU) as a fallback path in order... Read more →

At CES, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. introduced the new Samsung DRVLINE platform—an open, modular, and scalable hardware- and software-based platform for building advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). The platform is designed to accommodate a wide range of automated driving requirements, from ADAS and scaling upwards to support full autonomy. DRVLINE hardware... Read more →

Solid-state LiDAR company Quanergy (earlier post), introduced Qortex, a core, proprietary perception software platform compatible with Quanergy’s full suite of LiDAR sensors. With the release of Qortex, Quanergy is now the only LiDAR manufacturer to produce a commercial integrated software and hardware platform solution, enabling a entirely new level of... Read more →

At CES, TomTom (TOM2) launched two technologies to support autonomous driving: TomTom AutoStream—a map delivery service that enables vehicles to build a horizon for the road ahead by streaming the latest map data from the TomTom cloud—and TomTom MotionQ, a predictive driving concept to ensure the comfort of passengers in... Read more →

NVIDIA is delivering first samples of its Xavier processors (earlier post) to customers this quarter. Xavier, an all-new AI supercomputer designed for use in self-driving cars, is a complete system-on-chip (SoC), integrating a new 512-core Volta GPU, a custom 8-core CPU architecture, and a new computer vision acceleratora, new deep... Read more →

BYTON, a China-headquartered automotive brand owned by Future Mobility Corporation, unveiled its first drivable electric concept car at CES. With a novel digital design and innovative human-vehicle interaction, the premium SUV is intended to function as a new generation smart device for shared, smart mobility and autonomous driving. (Earlier post.)... Read more →

AEye, a startup with investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Airbus Ventures and Intel Capital (earlier post), announced the AE100, its first robotic perception system for autonomous vehicle, ADAS, and mobility markets. The AE100 is a solid state, cost-optimized system based on AEye’s iDAR (Intelligent Detection and Ranging) technology.... Read more →

Mobileye, an Intel Company, a global leader in the development of vision and data analysis for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, and Spain’s Directorate General of Traffic (DGT) have agreed to a collaboration intended to reduce road accidents and prepare Spain’s infrastructure ecosystem and regulatory policy for... Read more →

Molex and Excelfore have developed a 10 Gbps Ethernet Automotive Network designed to accelerate data bandwidth in intelligent connected vehicles. Integrating highly reliable high-speed data transmission, prioritization, scalability and security, the new Molex network platform featuring Excelfore connected mobility solutions will be officially unveiled at CES 2018. Based on an... Read more →

ON Semiconductor announced a scalable family of CMOS image sensors to address the spectrum of applications for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving. The sensors have resolutions scaling from 8.3 megapixels (MP) down to 1.2 MP, with industry-leading low-light performance from 4.2 µm pixels. The AR0820AT, AR0220AT and... Read more →

Nissan is researching technology that will enable vehicles to interpret signals from the driver’s brain, redefining how people interact with their cars. The company’s Brain-to-Vehicle (B2V) technology promises to speed up reaction times for drivers and will lead to cars that keep adapting. Nissan’s B2V technology is the first system... Read more →

Renesas Electronics Corporation is introducing the R-Car V3M Starter Kit to simplify and speed up the development of New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) front camera applications, surround view systems, and LiDARs. The new starter kit is based on the R-Car V3M image recognition system-on-chip (SoC), delivering a combination of low... Read more →

Four of 20 automakers report that automatic emergency braking (AEB) is standard on more than half of their 2017 model year vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced in the first update of manufacturer progress toward equipping every new vehicle... Read more →

Renesas Electronics Corporation and Dibotics, a leader in real-time 3D LiDAR processing, have collaborated to develop an automotive-grade embedded solution for LiDAR processing used in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving applications. The jointly-developed solution will enable system manufacturers to develop real-time 3D mapping systems with high level... Read more →

BYTON, a China-headquartered automotive brand owned by Future Mobility Corporation, inaugurated its North American headquarters in Santa Clara, California last week, marking further progress in the company’s strategic effort to establish a global presence. BYTON aspires to build “affordable” premium intelligent EVs—smart devices on wheels—for the future. The company is... Read more →

Continental is now developing its fifth generation of automotive short- and long-range radar sensors, which will enter series production in 2019. Not only does the new generation have greater capacity, it is also based on a scalable modular principle, which, with its graduated function scopes, flexibly supports vehicle manufacturers’ different... Read more →