Gartner predicts that by 2020 there will be 250 million smart connected cars on the world’s roads. This would represent 20% of all vehicles at the time.
CBR spoke to Richard York, VP of embedded marketing at ARM, who said: "Human error is the cause of almost all road accidents; more often than not the driver is simply not paying enough attention due to things like fatigue. Electronics are playing an increasingly important role in keeping our roads safe.
"There are even examples of technology that see inside vehicles, monitoring the driver and making sure he’s doing the right thing – paying attention! These internal systems are advanced enough to gauge drowsiness by measuring the driver’s blink rate or head position through a mounted camera near the rear view mirror. These technologies are only a few years away from being scaled up for mass market use."
With this week’s announcements in the sector, CBR put together a list of the big collaborations announced for the connected vehicle.
1. Huawei & Volkswagen
Huawei and Volkswagen are cooperating to connect cars to smartphones. The companies unveiled a series of apps that safely allow drivers to use GPS navigation systems, play music, send and receive messages, and make phone calls while behind the wheel.
Sven Patuschka, Executive VP for Research and Development of Volkswagen Group China, said: "Our cooperation with Huawei will seamlessly blend the capabilities of users’ smartphones with the systems in their cars.
"All content on the phone will be shown in real time on the car’s infotainment touch screen. The result is smart and convenient interaction between phone and car."
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2. Nvidia & Luxury brands
Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin and Tesla have all adopted Nvidia’s Tegra X1 development kit to be installed in their smart driving solutions.
The kit includes a powerful graphics processor, which enables the car to perceive the environment around itself. The solution gives the car ‘eyes’ to drive on the road and detect obstacles.
Danny Shapiro, director of automotive operations at Nvidia, told the Wall Street Journal: "The system can, for example, detect the difference between a taxicab and a police car and will know that the driver has to pull over for the police car if it’s flashing lights at the driver."
3. Foxconn & Cowin
Foxconn and Cowin have come together to produce a full smart solution for the car industry.
Chinese automaker Cowin is a company which has set focus on building smart cars for national consumers in their 20s and early 30s.
The enterprise has already three vehicles in its portfolio with in-dash touch screens and smartphone integration.
Reports suggest the venture will install a completely virtual HD dashboard, enabling those in the car to game virtually and introduce other features like handprint recognition to unlock and start the vehicle.
4. Huawei & Audi
Huawei entered a deal to equip Audi’s vehicles with its LTE modules to support 2G, 3G and 4G networks, in addition to TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE standards.
Cars will be enabled to reach download speeds of up to 100Mbps, enhancing data transfers on the road.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group said: "By partnering with industry-leading automobile companies like Audi, Huawei aims to bring the best interconnection services and solutions to the next generation of cars, while actively promoting interaction between cars, smartphones, wearables and people, creating a seamless communication experience and driving environment."
5. Daimler & Qualcomm
Daimler and Qualcomm have entered a strategic collaboration, which in a first phase will focus on transforming future vehicles with mobile technologies that enhance in-car experiences and vehicle performance such as 3G/4G connectivity, wireless charging technology for in-vehicle use.
The companies will implement the Qualcomm Halo Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) technology to achieve this. In addition, the companies are jointly assessing the application of Qualcomm Technology’s newly developed Automotive Solutions.
Derek Aberle, President of Qualcomm, said: "Our work with Daimler AG is a natural extension of the sponsorship we have with the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team as our work in motorsports cultivates the innovation and advancements seen in the auto space."
