http://www.cthreereport.com Driving the Conversation on the Connected Car and Mobility Wed, 04 Jan 2017 20:22:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.2 http://www.cthreereport.com/chrysler-portal-concept-minivan-millennials/ http://www.cthreereport.com/chrysler-portal-concept-minivan-millennials/#respond Wed, 04 Jan 2017 20:22:25 +0000
If I had a dollar for every time the word “millennial” was mentioned in the unveiling of the Chrysler Portal concept at CES in Las Vegas yesterday, I could have walked several yards to a blackjack table and made a sizeable wager. The original maker of the minivan called the semi-autonomous EV “the ‘fifth […]
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If I had a dollar for every time the word “millennial” was mentioned in the unveiling of the Chrysler Portal concept at CES in Las Vegas yesterday, I could have walked several yards to a blackjack table and made a sizeable wager. The original maker of the minivan called the semi-autonomous EV “the ‘fifth generation’ of family transportation focused toward the millennial generation” and paraded onstage a team of designers from the demographic to introduce the futuristic vehicle.
As media swarmed the Portal to get pictures following the presentation, a Chrysler representative mentioned to me that the concept is unique in that it’s meant to emphasize the interior and cutting-edge technology as much as the vehicle’s sleek sheet metal. FCA says that the Portal was “designed from the inside out.” Cindy Juette, lead interior designer for the Portal, described the cabin as a “third space” between home and work and compared the streamlined space that uses neutral and grey tones to an art gallery.
Like FCA minivans old and new, the Portal has flexible seating that can fold up or flat and slide fore/aft on a track system, but also uses what Juette called a “thin-design” to make the seats easier to move. Since the Portal is a battery-electric vehicle, with the battery pack running the length of the floor, the lack of an engine compartment allows for extra interior space.
Millennials want technology to be an essential aspect of their vehicles, and Portal has gadgets and tech features in spades. FCA designer Emilio Feliciano mentioned that Millennials are accustomed to “graphic-rich screens,” so the Portal has several displays positioned throughout the interior.
These include an instrument panel that runs the length of the dashboard, a flat-panel in-dash display and one above the second-row seats that allows passengers to share music, images and videos. Feliciano added that occupants would be able to order takeout using the central screen and place individual orders.
Portal will have as many as eight docking stations for portable devices and Feliciano said that the vehicle will be able to learn each user’s profile based on facial recognition and voice biometrics. He also noted that the vehicle will permit device integration ranging from wearable tech to baby monitors, and that Personal Zoned Audio will allow passengers to listen to their own tunes without disturbing others or even play in-car karaoke.
Chrysler said Portal “is capable of SAE Level Three semi-autonomous operation and the driver has the option to turn driving control over to the vehicle under certain highway driving situations. It’s equipped with radar, lidar and sonar sensors as well as cameras, and an FCA spokesperson told me that the vehicle will be “autonomous-ready as the technology evolves.” This includes an aviation-style steering yolk that recesses into the dashboard for self-driving.
Chrysler said the Portal concept will have a range of more than 250 miles on a full charge, and DC Fast Charging will allow the battery pack to be recharged for 150 miles of range in less than 20 minutes. The exterior design of the Portal features side doors that slide open, splitting the B pillars, while a transparent roof allows each passenger to have his or her “own personal skylight,” said designer Matt Dunford.
FCA said it has been studying millennials for more than two decades using ethnographic research to determine the wants and needs of this dominant demographic. The automaker added that in the next 10 years or so, most millennials will be starting families and 75 percent of all children will have a millennial parent.
They’ll need a vehicle to cart around all those kids, and FCA is hoping to provide a Portal for their transportation needs while reinventing the minivan for the millennial generation.
Originally published by Forbes.com
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Ford Introduces New Autonomous Development Vehicle, Expands Test Fleet to 90 Cars
2017 will go down as the year that autonomous cars swarm the roads in certain states to test and refine the technology. Google is expanding its stable of self-driving test vehicles via deals with Fiat Chrysler and now Honda, while Uber launched a fleet of autonomous Ford Fusions in Pittsburgh earlier this year and is […]
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2017 will go down as the year that autonomous cars swarm the roads in certain states to test and refine the technology. Google is expanding its stable of self-driving test vehicles via deals with Fiat Chrysler and now Honda, while Uber launched a fleet of autonomous Ford Fusions in Pittsburgh earlier this year and is expanding to Arizona after running afoul of the law in California. And GM announced plans this month to immediately start testing autonomous Chevy Bolts on roads around Detroit after dispatching 40 of the self-driving EVs to San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona for similar purposes.
Adding to this growing pack of self-driving guinea pigs on public roads, Ford revealed today that it’s not only introducing its latest Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Development Vehicle, but the Dearborn-based automaker is tripling the size of its fleet size—again.
At CES 2106, Ford announced it was adding 20 first-generation autonomous Fusion Hybrids to an original fleet of 10 introduced in late 2013, for a total of 30 test vehicles. Ford plans to triple that number again in 2017, “going from 30 to 90 total vehicles,” spokesman Alan Hall said in an email. He added that the new autonomous Fusion Hybrids will be on display next week at CES in Las Vegas and the following week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Chris Brewer, chief program engineer for Ford Autonomous Vehicle Development, said in a blog post that the new vehicles employ the previous platform, “but up the processing power with new computer hardware” and that the “electrical controls are closer to production-ready. New LiDAR sensors have a sleeker design and more targeted field of vision, which enables the car to now use just two sensors rather than four, while still getting just as much data,” Brewer added.
Ford’s first-generation autonomous test vehicles have four lidar sensors arrayed on a roof rack rail, while on the latest version they’re attached to the car’s A pillars. “These new sensors possess a sensing range roughly the length of two football fields in every direction,” Brewer noted.
The lidar sensors are augmented by three cameras installed on a roof rack and a forward-facing camera mounted under the windshield that can further identify objects detected by lidar and read traffic signs and lights. Short- and long-range radar sensors help the car “see” objects through heavy rain, fog and snow and also detect moving objects.
Since massive computational power is required to process the sensor data, the trunk of each Fusion Hybrid holds “the equivalent of several high-end computers” that “generate 1 terabyte of data an hour – more than the average person would use in mobile- phone data in 45 years,” according to Brewer. This also requires specialized software that Ford says it developed in-house.
Last August Ford announced that it plans to mass produce fully autonomous vehicles sans a steering wheel or gas and brake pedals by 2021 for ride-sharing and ride-hailing services. Brewer added that the “new development vehicle brings Ford a step closer” to this goal, although the new self-driving Fusion Hybrids will still have a steering wheel and pedals.
Brewer said that Ford’s “expanded fleet is accelerating our real-world testing already taking place on the roads in Michigan, California and Arizona.” The 90 self-driving Ford Fusion Hybrids will also significantly add to the number of autonomous test vehicles already on the road in those states, and speed up the development of the technology.
Originally published by Forbes.com
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Buick has produced a beautiful and able performer with the redesigned 2017 LaCrosse. The large sedan also has some of the most useful technology of any vehicle in its class, and it put its best tech features right in the driver’s face in the form of a head-up display (HUD) and an 8-inch LCD instrument […]
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The 2017 Buick LaCrosse’s instrument cluster reminded me that I’d (again) left an item in the rear seat. Photo by Doug Newcomb.
Buick has produced a beautiful and able performer with the redesigned 2017 LaCrosse. The large sedan also has some of the most useful technology of any vehicle in its class, and it put its best tech features right in the driver’s face in the form of a head-up display (HUD) and an 8-inch LCD instrument cluster.
In reviewing over 50 cars each year, I’ve tested almost every HUD available in production vehicles, and Buick’s version is consistently the best available. Some vehicles such as BMW bury HUD controls in the infotainment system so the driver has to drill down just to change, say, the brightness.
Buick places HUD controls on the dashboard next to the steering wheel and at the driver’s fingertips to adjust elements such as the display’s vertical position and brightness but also to switch through the HUD’s functions. The color HUD can be easily changed between its four main views: Speed, Audio/Phone, Navigation and Performance.
The driver assist warnings shown by the 2017 Buick LaCrosse’s head-up display are particularly helpful. Photo by Doug Newcomb.
oI found the driver assist warnings for forward collision alert, lane departure warning, and even pedestrian detection particularly helpful. The pedestrian detection system even sensed a person partially hidden behind a parked car who was about to enter a crosswalk even before I noticed them, and it displayed a visible and audible warning in the HUD to call the pedestrian to my attention.
The car’s LCD 8-inch instrument cluster display shows the same info as the HUD, and much more. And I was impressed with how the 2017 Buick LaCrosse reminded me via the instrument cluster about something else I didn’t notice or, more specifically, often forget.
I’ve been known to forget my gym bag, usually with a wet swimsuit wrapped in a damp towel in the backseat and the next day find it frozen solid in winter. Or in summer I’ve forgotten a gallon of milk overnight, only to discover that it’s still in the car’s backseat the next morning and has soured in the heat.
This wasn’t an issue with the Buick LaCrosse’s since the instrument cluster reminded me that I’d left an item in the rear seat – my gym bag, again – when I switched off the ignition. That’s the kind of tech that makes my life more convenient and adds value to the Buick LaCrosse.
And the fact that the HUD and 8-inch instrument cluster display is standard equipment on the 2017 LaCrosse Premium AWD I tested, with a base price of $43,365 and plenty of other great standard tech such as Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto, makes it one of the best-equipped vehicles in its class.
Originally published by Forbes.com
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BlackBerry Opens Autonomous Vehicle Research Facility, Will Test Self-Driving Cars On Canadian Roads
BlackBerry was an early pioneer in smartphones, before being surpassed by subsequent entries into the market such as Apple and Samsung. As self-driving cars become another emerging technology with big potential, BlackBerry wants to position itself at the forefront of autonomous vehicles by focusing on its software expertise rather than as a hardware supplier. […]
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BlackBerry was an early pioneer in smartphones, before being surpassed by subsequent entries into the market such as Apple and Samsung. As self-driving cars become another emerging technology with big potential, BlackBerry wants to position itself at the forefront of autonomous vehicles by focusing on its software expertise rather than as a hardware supplier.
The Canadian company is in an ideal position to achieve this goal, given the success of its QNX Software Systems subsidiary, which has been a bright spot for BlackBerry since acquiring it from Harman in 2010. QNX has become a dominant supplier of automotive software as cars become increasingly digitized, providing the OS found in more than 60 million vehicles and for infotainment systems such as Ford Sync and enabling Apple CarPlay and Android Auto across multiple automakers.
BlackBerry now wants to leverage QNX’s software expertise into powering the next generation of self-driving cars, and make its home country of Canada a player in autonomous vehicle research. It took steps towards these goals earlier this week by announcing plans to open an autonomous vehicle research center at QNX’s headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario and to begin testing self-driving cars on Canadian roads.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined BlackBerry executive chairman and CEO John Chen on Monday to unveil the BlackBerry QNX Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Centre (AVIC). “With the opening of its innovation center in Ottawa, BlackBerry is helping to establish our country as the global leader in software and security for connected car and autonomous vehicle development,” Trudeau said in a statement.
To staff the facility, BlackBerry QNX plans to recruit and hire local software engineers to work on connected and autonomous cars, and one of the AVIC’s first projects will be working with the University of Waterloo and other partners to build an autonomous concept vehicle. Trudeau added that the center “will create great middle-class jobs for Canadians, new opportunities for recent university graduates, and further position Canada as a global hub for innovation.”
The new facility will also serve as a base for BlackBerry software engineers to work on a pilot project to test self-driving cars on public roads, thanks to a recently-awarded permit from the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. BlackBerry didn’t confirm when it plans to begin testing self-driving cars but said it would showcase “early results” at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.
Originally published by Forbes.com
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California has long been a breeding ground for innovation and has fostered pioneering tech companies ranging from Disney to Apple. But in terms of self-driving cars—and based on several recent developments—a much more conservative Michigan is taking the pole position in nurturing the technology. Michigan and particularly the Detroit area is an ideal incubator for […]
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California has long been a breeding ground for innovation and has fostered pioneering tech companies ranging from Disney to Apple. But in terms of self-driving cars—and based on several recent developments—a much more conservative Michigan is taking the pole position in nurturing the technology.
Michigan and particularly the Detroit area is an ideal incubator for autonomous technology since it’s the center of the automotive universe and can capitalize on its ample homegrown talent and resources, including world-class vehicle manufacturing capability and research prowess. The state also has a wide range of weather conditions to better test self-driving vehicles in real-world conditions.
And it has a state government that’s friendly to the technology. A recent example of this is wide-ranging legislation signed into law last week by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder that allows autonomous vehicles to operate on state roads—without a human behind the wheel or even onboard.
It also permits platoons of semi-automated trucks to travel together at set speeds and self-driving ride-sharing services to pick up passengers. “This is a huge step for our state, because it will allow accurate and proper testing of autonomous vehicles on real roads in real situations…aimed at providing greater opportunities to test, manufacture and operate autonomous vehicles in [Michigan],” Snyder said in a blog post earlier this week.
Contrast this with California’s more restrictive approach. Last December, the state’s DMV released draft legislation that, among other things, requires that a driver must be ready to take the wheel of an autonomous vehicle at all times, and that a vehicle has to have a steering wheel and pedals.
This last point didn’t sit well with Google, the most high-profile California company testing autonomous cars, since its self-driving pods are designed without those traditional controls. “We’re gravely disappointed that California is already writing a ceiling on the potential for fully self-driving cars to help all of us who live here,” a Google spokesman said at the time.
Following release of the draft legislation, several technology and automotive trade groups sent a letter to the California State Transportation Agency that said requiring a driver behind the wheel “misses the point” of the technology. The stringent rules “miss a critical opportunity to increase safety and reduce accidents,” they said.
At the end of September, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that allows autonomous vehicles on public roads without a backup human driver or a steering wheel and pedals. But it only applies to a pilot project by at an autonomous-vehicle facility in Northern California testing and at a nearby business park, and speeds are limited to less than 35 mph.
Google reportedly told the California DMV late last year that if the rules weren’t loosened, the company’s self-driving car would not be made available in California, and Google has moved some of its testing to Texas and Washington state. Google also opened a large facility in the Detroit area earlier this year.
But evidence also came this week of why California could be wise to take a more cautious approach to autonomous vehicle legislation. Openly defying California’s permitting process for autonomous vehicles, Uber began testing self-driving Volvos in San Francisco, and one was caught on camera running a red light.
As companies race to take the lead in autonomous vehicles, expect to see more companies developing self-driving cars to flock to Michigan. Let’s just hope we don’t see self-driving big rigs running red lights as a result.
Originally published by PCMag.com
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Delphi and Mobileye’s Production-Ready System Accelerates Autonomous Technology
“Wait, did you switch on the turn signal,” I asked the person behind the wheel of an autonomous Audi Q5 developed by Delphi, “or did the vehicle do that on its own?” The test driver didn’t answer. Instead he closely watched the driver on the opposite side of the intersection near Delphi’s lab in Mountain […]
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