Consumer Reports said that emails and other government documents released publicly for the first time show failures by Tesla regarding its safety claims and the performance of Autopilot. Consumer Reports (CR) said that the documents reveal that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) must do more to ensure investigations... Read more →

Nissan Motor Co. has adopted Renesas’ automotive technology for the ProPILOT 2.0 system featured in the new Nissan Skyline unveiled in July. The driver assistance system combines navigated highway driving with hands-off, single-lane driving capabilities, employing Renesas’ R-Car automotive system-on-chip (SoC) and RH850 automotive control microcontroller (MCU) to implement core... Read more →

Velodyne Lidar, Inc. has acquired mapping and localization software as well as intellectual property assets from Mapper.ai. Mapper technology will enable Velodyne to accelerate development of Vella, software that establishes its directional view Velarray lidar sensor. The Velarray is the first solid-state Velodyne lidar sensor that is embeddable and fits... Read more →

Audi is adding the Q3 Sportback compact SUV in coupé shape to its model range. For the market launch in Europe, a gasoline and a diesel engine are available. With 169 kW (230 metric hp), the 2.0 TFSI is the most powerful engine. The 2.0 TDI has an output of... Read more →

Supplier of advanced automotive test systems AB Dynamics (ABDP) has acquired the simulation software specialist rFpro. This strengthens the company’s position in the simulation-based verification market for ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and autonomous vehicles. rFpro is a specialist in driving simulation for ADAS, autonomous systems and vehicle dynamics. Its... Read more →

Volvo Active Driver Assist (VADA) 2.0, a comprehensive collision mitigation system, will be made standard in the new Volvo VNR and VNL models, and available on VNX models, later this year. The system enhances the original VADA platform by integrating radar and camera capabilities to help drivers maintain a safe... Read more →

The Lexus Safety System+ will be a standard feature in all US Lexus vehicles starting with the 2020 model year. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) there were nearly 6.5 million reported crashes in 2017 (the most recent available data) many of which were avoidable. Collisions that... Read more →

Innovusion Inc., a designer and developer of hybrid Solid State LiDAR systems for vehicle safety applications, announced the availability of its Cheetah system. Based on a rotating polygon optical architecture, Innovusion has melded together proprietary detector electronics, advanced optics and sophisticated software algorithms to offer a long-distance, high-resolution LiDAR vehicle... Read more →

NIO has updated the NIO Pilot advanced driving assistant system (ADAS), adding seven features. At the same time, the company announced the NIO OS smart operating system was upgraded to NIO OS 2.0, and unveiled a new user experience (UX) vehicle interaction and user interface (UI) design. The NIO Pilot... Read more →

ZF has developed the Dual-cam two-lens camera specifically designed for the commercial truck market and to be used in concert with other ZF ADAS technologies. The camera features ZF’s longitudinal and lateral vehicle control expertise combined with Mobileye’s advanced EyeQ4 processor. Part of ZF’s S-Cam4 family of automotive-grade cameras, the... Read more →

Renesas Electronics Corporation continues to accelerate the development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) systems with new Perception Quick Start Software based on its R-Car V3H system-on-chip (SoC). The solution delivers reference software for camera obstacle detection (COD), LiDAR obstacle detection (LOD), and road feature detection (RFD)—three key recognition areas... Read more →

Audi is introducing the vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) service “Traffic Light Information” in Europe. From July, Audi will network new models with the traffic lights in Ingolstadt/Germany; further European cities will follow from 2020 onwards. Equipped cars will be more likely to catch a “green wave” in the city; Audi drivers will... Read more →

Electronic control units (ECUs) are playing an increasingly critical role in the automotive industry, driving the development of safer, smarter, cleaner and better-connected cars. As a result, IHS Markit expects global automotive ECU revenue to soar to $211 billion in 2030, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of... Read more →

ZF announced ZF coPILOT, an intelligent advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) leading to enhanced safety and driving comfort opportunities. Leveraging the power of AI and equipped with a comprehensive sensor set, vehicles can perform various automated driving functions, especially on freeways. In addition, ZF coPILOT can be operated with voice... Read more →

Lumotive, a Bill Gates-funded startup developing LiDAR systems for autonomous vehicles, introduced a beam-steering technology which will significantly improve the performance, reliability and cost of LiDAR systems for the emerging self-driving car industry. Initially targeting the robo-taxi market, Lumotive’s patented system uses Liquid Crystal Metasurfaces (LCM) and silicon fabrication to... Read more →

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has made awards under the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for a Phase 1 Truck Platooning Early Deployment Assessment. This project is being conducted to understand how truck platoons will operate in a realistic, operational environment. Previous research has resulted in the development of truck platooning... Read more →

Renesas Electronics Corporation announced the first microcontroller (MCU) with embedded flash that integrates a hardware-based virtualization-assisted function while maintaining the fast, real-time performance of the RH850 products. This hardware-based virtualization assist technology can support up to ASIL D level of functional safety, providing greater levels of system integration. The RH850/U2A... Read more →

Cars have been evolving with increasingly complex circuitry. SEAT’s Ateca crossover (SEAT is a Volkswagen Group company, the Ateca is based on the MQB platform and is related to Volkswagen’s Tiguan) features a complex arrangement of wires more than 2.2 km long. The wires, ranging from one millimeter to one... Read more →

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 →