Tech Watch/Feb. 2018

By: Scott Anderson - January 25, 2018 at 1:36 PM

The Coming EV Boom; Testing 3D Printing Close Up; A New LiDAR Entrant; Sensing Human Heartbeats Inside the Car

Byton: Electric, Level 3 and Conceptual—For Now

January 25, 2018 at 12:14 PM

Unveiled at CES 2018, the Byton electric vehicle will have Level 3 autonomous capabilities at launch in 2019 and then will be able to have Level 4 integrated about a year later.

2018 Hyundai Sonata SEL

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 24, 2018 at 6:16 AM

When I was growing up, my dad always bought sedans.

Electric and Electrified

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 17, 2018 at 9:55 AM

Volvo Cars announced last July that starting in 2019 every car that it produces will have an electric motor.

Autonomy Picks Up Speed

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 16, 2018 at 2:37 PM

The latest generation of the ProAI unit from ZF for autonomous vehicle technology is capable of processing inputs from multiple cameras, LiDAR and radar, as well as “paint” a 360-degree view around a vehicle, locate it on an HD map, and calculate a safe path through traffic, in no small part because it deploys the NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier, which is a processor that is capable of performing 30 deep-learning trillions of operations per section.

Sales, Autonomy & the Changing Business Model

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 15, 2018 at 6:22 AM

IHS Markit has come out with its prediction for global light vehicle sales for 2018, which it forecasts to be 95.9-million units.

Your Car Keeping an Eye On You

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 10, 2018 at 9:23 AM

“For the first time ever, we’re closing the loop on human behavior understanding through vision AI,” says Modar Alaoui, founder and CEO of Eyeris, a company that has developed technology for face analytics and emotion recognition, which has now extended that to body tracking and action and activity recognition.

Toyota’s e-Commerce/Mobility Platform

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 08, 2018 at 9:21 PM

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corp., said at CES today that his goal is to transform Toyota from being a car company to becoming a mobility company.

Developing the Wicked Stick

January 08, 2018 at 1:49 PM

The Ford Performance Drift Stick was specifically developed for those who like to drift in their vehicles.

Photodiodes Designed to Detect Rain & Handle Moisture

January 08, 2018 at 1:35 PM

Osram Opto Semiconductors has developed what they say is the world’s first surface-mount technology (SMT) package for photodiode chips.

Engineering Crossovers

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 08, 2018 at 6:11 AM

According to Autodata, for 2017, the number of cars of all shapes and price points sold in the U.S. was 6,332,925.

Dealing with Hacking

By: Gary S. Vasilash - January 05, 2018 at 6:33 AM

A key concern for both potential riders and system providers in and of autonomous vehicles is hacking: for the former, who hasn’t seen a movie during which the locks on the door engage and the vehicle takes off endangering the hero; for the latter, when there are recalls because of faulty latches, can you imagine the ramifications of a hacked vehicle?