Nissan and NTT DOCOMO, INC. are putting Nissan’s Invisible-to-Visible technology through its field test in a moving vehicle, using DOCOMO’s fifth-generation mobile communications connectivity. The technology, first revealed at the CES trade show in Las Vegas in January, is being tested at Grandrive, Nissan’s proving ground in Yokosuka, Japan. Invisible-to-Visible,... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group has developed a “Digital Key”, which allows users to unlock and start their Hyundai or Kia vehicle via their smartphone. Replacing a traditional physical key, the new Digital Key can be downloaded via an app and used by up to four authorized people. The Digital Key can... 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 →

Hyundai Motor Company announced the first smart fingerprint technology that allows drivers not only to unlock doors but also to start the vehicle. Hyundai plans to implement the technology initially in Santa Fe SUV model that is to be released in select markets on the first quarter of 2019. To... Read more →

The BMW Group is introducing the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant—a new proprietary in-car AI assistant intended to enhance the BMW driving experience. The always on-call technology platform is an intelligent, digital character that responds to the prompt “Hey BMW” and has the ability to serve the driver in a range... Read more →

ZF & Faurecia have developed an operating and display concept for fully automated vehicles (level 4 AVs) without a steering wheel and pedals. The Trendsetting Cockpit concept interactive display currently is a static demonstration unit. The concept allows drivers—even when driving manually—to decide between the left and right front seat... 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 →

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 →

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 →

Many of the infotainment features in most 2017 vehicles are so distracting they should not be enabled while a vehicle is in motion, according to a new study by University of Utah researchers. The study, led by University of Utah Psychology Professor David L. Strayer, found In-Vehicle Information Systems take... Read more →

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is introducing the industry’s first embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) solution for use in next-generation automotive applications. Consisting of 128-gigabyte (GB) and 64GB versions, the new eUFS solution has been designed for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), next-generation dashboards and infotainment systems that provide comprehensive connected features... Read more →

Volkswagen unveiled the new sixth-generation Polo at an event in Berlin. With more than 14 million units sold to date, the Polo is one of the world’s most successful compact cars. The sixth generation has a fully new sportier exterior design, and is bigger than its predecessor in every dimension.... Read more →

Volvo Cars announced a “close” partnership with Google to develop the next generation of in-car infotainment and connectivity solution based on Android, offering access to a wide array of apps and services. It will launch on new Volvo models within two years. The large catalog of popular Android apps—developed by... Read more →

China’s second largest vehicle manufacturer, Dongfeng Motor, has selected Visteon’s SmartCore cockpit domain controller technology (earlier post) for a future domestic Chinese light vehicle program. This will be Visteon’s first SmartCore application in China, the company’s largest market and the world’s biggest automotive market. With the average number of ECUs... Read more →

Volvo Cars announced a range of updates to its global connected services program and its Sensus in-car user interface, starting with the new XC60 and the company’s existing and new 90 Series cars. First, Volvo Cars is expanding its In-car Delivery service, a part of the Volvo On Call smartphone... Read more →

OpenSynergy, a developer of embedded automotive software for in-car cockpit solutions, is developing the industry’s first software hypervisor for the ARM Cortex-R52 processor, ARM’s most advanced real-time safety processor. The hypervisor turns any chip based on the Cortex-R52 into several virtual machines capable of simultaneously executing separate software tasks. The... Read more →

Many recent human factors studies of takeover time in automated vehicles have looked at how long it takes a driver to resume control of the vehicle in critical situations in which the driver has a relatively short time span to respond to the takeover request (TOR). However, there has been... Read more →

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017 in Las Vegas, Hyundai Motor revealed its Mobility Vision concept that, in the future, will connect autonomous cars to living and working environments. Hyundai says that its Smart House technology blurs the line between mobility and living and working space, integrating the car... Read more →

Audi’s next-generation A8, premiering this year, will feature the first implementation of the MIB2+ (Modular Infotainment Platform). The key element in this new implementation of the MIB is NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 processor (earlier post), which makes new functions possible and has the computing power needed to support several high-resolution displays—including... Read more →

At CES 2017, Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America introduced the Panasonic Cognitive Infotainment platform designed to provide OEMs and fleet providers a set of cognitive vehicle solutions combining Panasonic’s infotainment expertise with IBM’s Watson and cloud technologies. The platform leverages Watson cognitive capabilities, including deep natural language processing and... Read more →

At CES 2017, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI), a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced the integration of Qualcomm Technologies chipsets in the next-generation of Volkswagen AG vehicles. These chipsets include the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820A processor (earlier post) for advanced infotainment systems, as well as the Snapdragon X12 and X5 LTE modems,... Read more →

Ford Motor Company and Toyota Motor Company are forming SmartDeviceLink Consortium (SDL), a nonprofit organization working to manage an open-source software platform with the goal of giving consumers more choice in how they connect and control their smartphone apps on the road. Mazda Motor Corporation, PSA Group, Fuji Heavy Industries... Read more →

Visteon Corporation, a leading cockpit electronics supplier, has secured a second major customer vehicle program for its cockpit domain controller technology, SmartCore. (Earlier post.) Visteon is the only supplier offering an automotive-grade, integrated domain controller approach that can independently operate the infotainment system, instrument cluster and potentially other features on... Read more →

FCA is collaborating with Google on next-generation connected car systems enabled by the power of an open platform and the ecosystem of the Android open-source operating system. At CES 2017 this week, FCA and Google will demonstrate a seamless integration of the Uconnect 8.4-inch connected vehicle system with Android inside... Read more →

Volvo Cars will introduce Skype for Business, Microsoft’s collaborative productivity app, to its new 90 Series cars. Volvo Cars is the first carmaker to launch such an in-car productivity tool. Skype for Business is actively used by millions of people at work around the globe. In Volvo’s 90 Series cars... Read more →

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) has released the latest version of its infotainment platform. Developed through a joint effort by dozens of member companies, the AGL Unified Code Base (UCB) 3.0 is an open-source infotainment platform positioned as a de facto industry standard. The goal of the UCB infotainment platform is... Read more →

Samsung Electronics will acquire HARMAN for $112.00 per share in cash, or total equity value of approximately $8.0 billion. Upon closing, the transaction will immediately give Samsung a significant presence in the large and rapidly growing market for connected technologies, particularly automotive electronics, which has been a strategic priority for... Read more →

Volkswagen presented a major update of the Golf in an event at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg. In addition to some design enhancements, the new Golf features new engines (including the Millerized 1.5L EA211 introduced at the Vienna Motor Symposium in April, earlier post), new assistance systems and a new generation... Read more →

Volkswagen unveiled the 2018 Volkswagen Atlas SUV at an event on the Santa Monica Pier. Built in Chattanooga alongside the Passat, the seven-passenger Atlas offers a full slate of available driver assistance and technology features—including Volkswagen’s first Digital Cockpit in a vehicle for the US—a spacious interior and a choice... Read more →

Intel is developing a new processor series dedicated for automotive applications. The A3900 series will enable a complete software-defined cockpit solution that incudes in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), digital instrument clusters and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)—all in a single, compact and cost-effective SoC. Intel announced the new automotive processor family along... 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 →

Brands within the Volkswagen Group have been rolling out modular component matrices, or assembly toolkits, for their light-duty vehicles over the past few years. Until recently, the four main modular toolkits (modularen Baukästen) of the Group were: the MQB (transverse, driven by the Volkswagen brand); the MLB (longitudinal, driven by... Read more →

NSF has awarded (Award Nº 1545126) $4.6 million to a team led by UC Berkeley exploring human cyber-physical systems (h-CPS)—systems that operate in concert with human operators—with the aim of improving the interaction between humans, computers and the physical world. The research outcome of the project, called Verified Human Interfaces,... Read more →

At Monterey Car Week, Mercedes unveiled the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6. Designed as an electric car, the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6, which measures almost six metres in length, features all-wheel drive provided by its four compact permanent magnet synchronous electric motors. The output of the drive system is 550 kW (750 hp).... Read more →

Members of AVnu Alliance, the industry consortium driving open, standards-based deterministic networking (earlier post), publicly demonstrated interoperability of systems designed to meet the AVnu Automotive Profile at the Automotive Ethernet Congress held in Munich, Germany earlier this year. The demo featured products and solutions from several AVnu Alliance members: Ixia,... Read more →

Audi is refreshing the A3 with new engines—including the A3’s first 3-cylinder unit and a new 2.0L TFSI—new driver assistance systems and the Audi virtual cockpit. The new A3 is available in a three-door version and as a Sportback, a sedan and a Cabriolet. The engine lineup for the new... Read more →

Over the next few years (exact timing is unannounced) Volkswagen’s e-Golf battery-electric vehicle will receive a boost in range due to planned and anticipated improvements to its batteries (earlier post) as well as some of the advanced HMI (human-machine interface), device and connectivity technologies showcased at CES 2016 in the... Read more →

Addressing the proliferation of electronic control units (ECUs) in vehicles, Visteon Corporation is preparing to launch an industry-first, automotive-grade cockpit domain controller with a European automaker on a global vehicle program in 2018. SmartCore combines previously separate instrument clusters, head-up displays (HUD) and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) domains on... Read more →

AT CES 2016, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) introduced an automotive-grade Ethernet bridge solution for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and other automotive applications. The TC9560XBG supports standards such as IEEE 802.1AS and IEEE 802.1Qav, generally referred to as Ethernet-AVB (Audio Video Bridging). The Ethernet-AVB standard enables stable, reliable multimedia transmissions,... Read more →

by Mike Millikin At CES 2016, Volkswagen unveiled the battery-electric BUDD-e van. Equipped with a 101 kWh battery pack supporting a range of up to 373 miles (600 km) on the NEDC, the BUDD-e concept is the first vehicle based on Volkswagen’s new Modular Electric Platform (MEB) designed specifically for... Read more →

Visteon will display two vehicles featuring advanced concepts at CES 2016 this coming week in Las Vegas: one with 3-D gesture technology and the other with a large field-of-vision windshield head-up-display (HUD). A separate driving simulator brings together the latest Visteon human-machine interaction (HMI) input technologies for an interactive experience... Read more →