TomTom announced a real-time electric vehicle service available to automakers and suppliers to let vehicle owners know when and where they can charge their cars. The service includes nearly 11,000 charging stations across the U.S. and Canada, said the company. “For the electric car market to grow, it’s important that we reduce the barriers to entry, one of which is range anxiety,” said Olaf Gietelink, vice president-marketing at TomTom Automotive. The service launched in Europe in September and covers more than 45,000 charging stations globally.
Globalstar launched Globalstar Automotive, a division aimed at supporting the expected connected and autonomous vehicles and intelligent transport markets, it said Monday. Former Inmarsat Connected Car Program President Greg Ewert will head the division, reporting to President Dave Kagan, Globalstar said. (See the personals section in this publication's issue.)
More than half of U.S. connected car drivers said they wouldn’t buy a self-driving car, researcher Solace reported Thursday. Two-thirds believe they drive more safely in connected cars, but 40 percent wouldn’t trust their cars to brake for them. Forty-six percent of drivers ages 18-25 wouldn’t trust their car to automatically react to driving conditions vs. a third of drivers 65 or older. Safety and navigation are the most trusted and valued features, with 49 percent of drivers most likely to rely on safety sensors -- such as lane departure alerts -- in a connected car, 35 percent on navigational prompts. Forty-eight percent weren't aware their vehicle could store personal data such as social security numbers and birthdays. The online survey occurred Jan. 17-19 with 1,500 drivers.
Backed by $21 million in Series A funding, including CSAA Insurance, Palo Alto-based Owl launched Owl Car Cam Thursday, calling it the first LTE-connected security camera for vehicles. The 24/7 camera is designed to capture crashes, break-ins, dents and traffic stops, using video, sensors and intelligent software, said the company. During driving, dual-facing cameras capture what happens on the road, inside and outside of the car. While parked, Owl sensors automatically alert the driver to incidents via the Owl Cam app, which lets car owners see and use video evidence of events including break-ins or parking lot “dings,” said the company. The Owl Car Cam is always connected to power and uses an LTE connection to access up to 24 hours of video and alerts. The $299 camera draws power from the on-board diagnostics port and initially is controlled only by an iOS 11-compatible app. Features include dual HD cameras, an LTE cellular radio, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, a touch screen, processor, speakers, microphones, security beacon and lights. Owl’s LTE service, $10 per month for 60 minutes of live video or 60 video tags, provides instant security alerts, voice-controlled video clip creation, live remote video of what's happening in a car and the ability to view incidents from the past 24 hours, from anywhere, said the company.
Qualcomm and Ford extended their relationship to include development of advanced connectivity systems for Ford vehicles and upcoming cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) chipset in first half 2018, they said Tuesday. Qualcomm's first C-V2X commercial technology, the 9150 C-V2X chipset, will be commercially available in second half 2018, said the company. Depending on results and possible regulatory changes, the technology could be featured in vehicles “in the near future,” said the companies. Ford and Qualcomm are working together on the first announced U.S. C-V2X trials in San Diego using the 9150 C-V2X.
ON Semiconductor will show its Automotive Image Sensing Applications Platform at CES, demonstrating image sensors used for front view, surround view, rear view and drive monitoring, the company said Tuesday. Its Intelligent Automotive Solutions demo vehicle will highlight the company’s wired and wireless connectivity technologies, and an interactive automotive virtual reality demo using a 3D model of a next-generation vehicle will show ON solutions in autonomous driving scenarios involving collision avoidance, drowsy driving, and Level 5 fully autonomous driving, said the company.
BlackBerry and Qualcomm announced a strategic collaboration to develop and produce connected vehicle platforms. The nonexclusive relationship pairs select Qualcomm hardware platforms with BlackBerry’s QNX software for use in virtual cockpit controllers, telematics (including eCall and Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology), electronic control gateways, digital instrument clusters and infotainment systems, said the companies. They agreed to optimize BlackBerry’s over-the-air software and secure credential management services for use with select Qualcomm Snapdragon modems. It builds on a decade-long relationship and aims to accelerate delivery of next-generation automotive platforms, they said.
Nearly 87 percent of U.S. residents want government to mandate stricter data security for connected cars, said a survey of 1,000 by cyber systems provider Thales. Three out of five are more concerned about internet-based vehicle technology than five years ago.
The U.S. cellular machine-to-machine market will exceed 300 million connections by 2022, said a Tuesday ABI report, but major mobile operators face challenges: technologies being positioned as competitive to cellular, growing interest in private network opportunities, and a debate on merits of licensed and unlicensed spectrum. As AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon rush to deploy the latest LTE technologies, new competition is emerging, said the report. Comcast’s support of long-range wireless is a first for a mainstream provider in the U.S. market and a “huge distraction for the top four U.S. mobile operators,” said analyst Kevin McDermott. Comcast is "building on the back of its two main network assets: backhaul infrastructure and successful Wi-Fi hotspot deployments,” said McDermott. Its hot spot program surpassed 16 million, “and they are actively developing an M2M strategy,” McDermott said. Telematics and asset tracking are opportunities for U.S. cellular providers, said McDermott, with coverage and low latency “essential requirements” for the fast-growing segments. In the U.S., connected car applications could benefit U.S. cellular operators “if they don’t get distracted by other technologies,” said McDermott. Of the 82.6 million cellular connected M2M devices at the end of 2016, 68 percent were related to telematics and other transportation applications, said ABI. LTE, including LTE Cat-M and narrow-band IoT, is expected to become the largest network standard for the IoT in the U.S., offering options for data rates, range and node power efficiency, it said.
Ford expects to have 100 percent of its U.S. vehicles connected by 2019 and 90 percent globally by 2020, President-Global Operations Joseph Hinrichs told a Goldman Sachs investor conference Monday. “The opportunity of connecting the vehicle with modems going forward is really to bring the whole system to that connected integration as well. And so the art of the possible expands dramatically.” Ford needs to design the “electrical architecture” into the connected car “to take advantage of that at the same time you put the modem in the vehicle,” said Hinrichs. “So in that '19, '20 time period, you're going to see us be able to take advantage of that more dramatically because we're timing the architecture upgrades to be able to support that.” As one designs the system, “you have to design it in a way that you're intentional about how you can access the key architecture of the vehicle while protecting others from a safety and security standpoint,” he said. A dedicated team inside Ford is working on ways to “make the user experience so much greater with our vehicle with this capability,” he said. Ford isn’t ready to disclose “specific examples” of its connected-car strategy for the end of the decade, “but we are very thoughtful about how to make this better from a human-centered standpoint,” he said. “What can we help you do better in your daily life and make it easier and more enjoyable by having this capability? And that's how we're thinking about it.”