More than eight in 10 early adopter owners of electric vehicles say they “definitely will” consider buying another EV in the future, reported J.D. Power Thursday. “Satisfaction with the current ownership experience is a key influencer for whether owners will purchase the same brand of EV again.” The research company canvassed nearly 10,000 owners of 2015-20 model year EVs in October and November to devise an index that measures ownership satisfaction on a 1,000-point scale, using parameters like the availability of public charging stations, cost of ownership and ease of charging at home. It then examined how the scores affect possible future buying behavior. The study found 95% of EV owners whose overall ownership satisfaction exceeds 900 points plan to buy another EV, with nearly two-thirds (64%) of them saying they “definitely will” repurchase the same brand. But the likelihood to repurchase the same brand lessens as satisfaction declines, said the company. Among owners whose satisfaction is 600-750 points, 77% said they “definitely will” purchase another EV, but their likelihood of repurchasing the same brand is only 25%, it said: ““Brand loyalty can be fickle among EV owners. While early adopters of EVs say they’ll remain loyal to EVs in general, staying with the same brand is not a sure thing.”

Xperi’s FotoNation subsidiary in Romania achieved ISO 9001 certification for its DTS AutoSense, said Xperi Wednesday. DTS AutoSense includes camera-based driver- and occupancy-monitoring solutions (OMS), which together provide insights into activity inside the vehicle, including the driver, passengers, pets and objects. DTS AutoSense OMS is the world’s first occupancy-monitoring to be designed into passenger vehicles projected to be on the road in 2021, said Xperi. ISO 9001 certification “ensures we can exceed the quality expectations of the global automotive market,” said Xperi General Manager Jeff Jury.

Harman, Continental and Bosch are market leaders in the connected vehicle infotainment systems segment that generated $32 billion in 2019 revenue, reported ABI Research Wednesday. ABI ranks Harman as “the clear leader,” with Continental a distant second and Bosch “a close third.” They collectively have about 30% of worldwide revenue, it said. Harman leads the ranking “because it has redefined its market positioning as a premium infotainment provider to develop global cockpit solutions with a scalable approach ranging from mass-market to premium OEMs,” said ABI.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment Thursday on a Brose North America waiver request for a radar that detects infants and children “inadvertently left in an automobile.” Brose asked to use higher power levels than are allowed for short-range interactive motion sensors operating in the 57-64 GHz band, OET said. Comments are due Feb. 1, replies Feb. 16, in docket 20-434. Comments are due on the same dates, in docket 20-435, for a similar device by IEE Sensing, which also needs to use higher power levels in the 60-64 GHz band.

Under BlackBerry’s agreement with Amazon Web Services to develop and market BlackBerry’s cloud-based intelligent vehicle data system, code-named Ivy, to automotive OEMs, BlackBerry “will own all the commercial relationships with customers” and will share revenue with AWS, said BlackBerry CEO John Chen on a fiscal Q3 investor call Thursday. AWS and BlackBerry announced the agreement Dec. 1. Modern vehicles generate huge amounts of data, but the auto industry “is not prepared to capture and create value from the analytics” because the data are difficult to collect and monetize “without very costly integrations,” said Chen. Ivy’s task “is to make it easy to gather, securely transport and analyze these data in a standard and a cost-efficient way across multiple brands and models on a common platform,” he said. The multiyear pact with AWS is an “exclusive co-development and co-marketing agreement,” he said. “This type of agreement is rare. BlackBerry and AWS engineers have been working very closely to jointly build the platform.” The effort will yield “an ecosystem of apps and services developed on the BlackBerry Ivy platform over time,” he said. The platform’s “recurring revenue model” will monetize data analytics apps and services on per-use and subscription bases, he said. “An important difference between BlackBerry Ivy and competitors in this space is that we allow the OEM to own the data and with that the relationship with their customers. We’re already in discussion with some automakers who were granted early access and we have received positive initial feedback.” The target is to commercialize the first Ivy apps and services in time for automakers’ 2023 model year, he said. “While it is too early for us to provide a revenue outlook, we are confident that BlackBerry Ivy addresses a very large market opportunity.”

Trimble global navigation satellite service corrections are now transmitting through SiriusXM. New cars sold in the continental U.S. and Canada equipped with the SiriusXM Gen8 satellite chipset can receive GNSS corrections that allow high-accuracy positioning, a key part of autonomous on-road applications, Trimble said Thursday. It said the GNSS corrections service, used with high-definition maps, cameras, radar and inertial sensors, can provide "lane-level positioning performance for semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles."

Drivers with Apple CarPlay can now use it with SpotHero to find, book and pay for off-street parking in more than 300 North American cities, without touching a phone, said the app company Wednesday. CarPlay integration expands SpotHero from a stand-alone app to the car’s head unit display, said Elan Mosbacher, SpotHero senior vice president-strategy and operations.

Vehicle connectivity has become “democratized,” said Strategy Analytics Tuesday, with all buyers expecting it in some form. Differentiators are ease-of-use, seamless integration and intuitive functionality, said analyst Richard Robinson, and the challenge is to make the vehicle cabin’s technologies work in harmony and meet expectations.

Global shipments of new vehicles with Android Automotive infotainment systems will reach 36 million shipments in 2030, reported ABI Research Wednesday. Android Automotive is “ideal for mass-market vehicles” because it contains “pre-developed” automotive audio, navigation and Bluetooth “extensions,” reducing costs and time to market, said ABI: “Built-in Google services provide access to other connected devices and a smartphone-like experience to the cockpit at lower costs.”

IEE Sensing asked the FCC to grant a waiver of Part 15 rules to permit equipment certification of the VitaSense sensor to provide unattended child detection functions in a completely stopped vehicle. “Such a waiver would well serve the public interest by saving lives, without creating any risk of harmful interference,” the company said in a Monday petition. The device operates across 4 GHz of spectrum at 60-64 GHz.