“As digital technologies cause disruption across the value chain from manufacturing to after-sales service, rules of the game are changing and new opportunities and threats are emerging for auto makers,” said Karan Singh, Managing Director at Bain & Company India, in a statement.

Social media will influence about 40 per cent of sales valued at $23 billion by 2020, up from 20 per cent of sales today.

Nearly 80 per cent of online research is on mobile phones and this is expected to rise further with the increasing penetration of smartphones and mobile data connections.

“Digital has struck the automotive world with lightning speed and this transition to digital is only going to accelerate, today’s ideas go from drawing board to production in months rather than decades,” added Umang Bedi, Managing Director, Facebook India.

Most Indian automobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are behind the curve in digital investments, spending 10 to 11 per cent of their total marketing expenditure on digital mediums in 2016, the findings showed.

Though dealers have started to shift towards better digital engagement with their customers, more than 85 per cent of the dealers said they still use bulk SMS and database calling as their customer-targeting process.

By 2020, up to 40 per cent of consumers are expected to book repair and maintenance services online and about 30 percent will go online to purchase vehicle accessories, up from 14 per cent and eight per cent respectively today.

IANS 

Picture source: Alamy Image

Picture used for illustrative purposes alone

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The cars will communicate with one another about any hazards and should operate with almost full autonomy—but will have a human on board as well.

Previous tests of driverless vehicles in the UK have mainly taken place at slow speeds and not on public roads.

“We’re moving from the singleton autonomous vehicle to fleets of autonomous vehicles—and what’s interesting is what data the vehicles share with one another, when, and why,” the BBC quoted founder Paul Newman, a professor from Oxford University, as saying.

The project is backed by a government grant of 8.6 million pounds ($11 million) and involves an insurance company which will assess the risks involved at each stage of the journey.

IANS

Picture source: Alamy image

Picture used for illustrative purposes alone

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U.S. station commander Shane Kimbrough, 49, and French flight engineer Thomas Pesquet, 39, floated outside the station’s airlock as the $100 billion complex soared 250 miles (402 km) above Earth.

Kimbrough, making his fifth spacewalk, first upgraded a computer relay box on the station’s central beam, then worked on a docking system for new spaceships in development by Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is making the retrofits in the hope that private companies will begin flying astronauts to the station by the end of 2018. This would break Russia’s monopoly on crew transportation, a service that costs NASA more than $80 million per person.

The first of the space taxis is scheduled for an unmanned debut test flight later this year.

During Friday’s spacewalk, Kimbrough disconnected four cables on a docking tunnel to be used by the new commercial space taxis. On Sunday, ground control teams will use the station’s robot arm to move it onto a different module.

The astronauts also lubricated part of the station’s robot arm, replaced cameras on Japan’s experiment platform and tackled other maintenance tasks before heading back inside the station.

A second spacewalk by Pesquet and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is planned for Thursday to install new cables to the relocated docking tunnel.

Once all the work is finished, the U.S. side of the station will have two docking ports for passenger spaceships and two for cargo ships. Russia, which jointly operates the station with NASA, has five docking ports.

Also participating in the station program with research modules and equipment are Europe, Japan and Canada.

During Friday’s spacewalk, Pesquet inspected hoses, attachments and other components of the station’s ammonia cooling system. Flight controllers are looking for the source of a small leak in the system.

Pesquet, making his second spacewalk, did not see any leaking ammonia but engineers will review his video for closer scrutiny, said NASA mission commentator Gary Jordan.

NASA is expected to schedule a third spacewalk once its next cargo ship arrives at the station with more items to install. Engineers are troubleshooting a problem with the cargo ship’s launch vehicle.

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The company called Nio, founded by Chinese entrepreneur William Li and with offices in Silicon Valley, Europe and China, unveiled a prototype of the vehicle called Eve at the South by Southwest tech conference in Austin, Texas.

According to a Nio statement, the car will be “a digital companion, a robot on wheels” equipped with “an artificial intelligence engine with an intuitive human interface, providing verbal and visual connections both within the vehicle and with the outside world.”

It will use its glass panels as “an augmented vision for occupants and for new kinds of entertainment,” according to the company statement.

The new car is likely to compete in the premium segment with vehicles from Tesla and others, including another Chinese-funded startup, Faraday Future, as automakers ramp up efforts to deliver autonomous driving.

“We’re excited about having autonomous electric cars for US consumers in 2020,” said Padmasree Warrior, chief executive of US division and a former executive at Cisco and Motorola.

“Today we also unveiled our vision for the car of the future, focused on delivering unmatched user experience through leading edge, software defined hardware.”

Nio, which produces the NextEV cars for Formula E racing, has raised capital from Chinese tech firms Tencent and Lenovo, the private investment firms TPG and Sequoia Capital, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek.

According to its statement, Nio has more than 2,000 employees in various locations around the world and has an autonomous vehicle testing permit for California.

Kris Tomasson, Nio’s vice president for design, told AFP the company expected to have the first fully autonomous vehicle in the US market.

“We have a startup mentality,” he said. “We are using the advantages of being nimble, and we don’t have a lof of the legacy issues of traditional manufacturers.”

While some details will depend on US regulations, Tomasson said the vehicle will be designed as “a living space” for up to six passengers, but may allow for a driver.

“We are trying to bring people a joyful lifestyle, and we want to create consumer engagement from all aspects,” we said.

“We want to create a holistic user experience.”

Tomasson said he expected the car to be capable of “level 4” autonomy, or the highest level designated for self-driving.

Another model, without full autonomy, wis set to be introduced in China in 2018, he said.

Tomasson said he did not have details on pricing or the driving range between charges of the new vehicle, or where it would be manufactured.—AFP

Image: http://www.nio.io

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A study published Monday in the journal PNAS showed canary yellow cabs in Singapore were nine percent less likely to get into fender-benders or serious smash-ups than taxis that were deep blue.

“Yellow taxis are safer to travel in because yellow is more visible than blue,” lead author Teck-Hua Ho, a professor at the National University of Singapore, told AFP.

Accident rates diverged even more at night, probably because street lighting accentuates the contrast, he said.

The findings “should play a major role in determining the colours used for public transportation vehicles,” the study concluded.

While this might seem like common sense, up to now there has been scant scientific evidence that dark-coloured cars are more dangerous.

To test their hunch that colour matters when it comes to safety, Ho found a real-world laboratory in his own backyard.

The fleet of Singapore’s largest cab company, it turned out, was divided between light- and dark-toned vehicles.

The researchers compared accident records covering a 36-month period for more than 4,000 yellow and 14,500 blue cars belonging to the company.

To make sure there was no discrepancy in driver skills, they also analysed background data and work histories of 3,341 randomly selected professional cabbies.

“Some drivers also had experience driving taxis of both colours, and we showed that they had higher accident rates when they drove blue taxis,” Ho told AFP.

The risk, they found, is especially dangerous for the drivers.

Over a typical, 40-year career, a cabbie in a dark-toned vehicle will, on average, get into three additional accidents, 34 instead of 31.

Any of those extra smash-ups, of course, might be fatal — for the driver or the passengers.

The Singapore taxi company’s 16,700 cars could avoid 900 accidents per year if the entire fleet were painting yellow, the researchers calculated.

Assuming an average repair cost of $US 700 (670 euros) per car and a down time of six days, switching colours would also generate annual savings of $US 1.4 million (1.3 million euros).

The Yellow Cab Company of Chicago set what was to became a global trend in 1907 after commissioning a study on what colour would be most visible for people trying to hail a cab.

During the first two decades of the 20th century, almost all cars plying city streets were black.

Yellow cabs spread across the United States, most famously in New York City, where they remain an icon and an institution to this day.

As often happens in science, Ho and his colleagues did not set out to study the link between colour and car crashes.

“We were engaged in a general study on the accident rate of taxi drivers,” ho explained by email.—AFP

Image: AFP

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Connectivity includes not only their infotainment systems but also critical vehicle systems, such as door locks and ignition, which are now accessible online. Thanks to apps, one can easily control their vehicles at the touch of a button. Sure it’s convenient, but how confident can we be that no one else is snooping on your connection and using it to break into your car?

In order to find this out, Kaspersky Lab researchers have tested seven remote car control applications that have been downloaded by millions of users. The research discovered that each of the examined apps contained several security issues. These issues can potentially allow criminals to cause significant damage for connected car owners.

The list of the security issues discovered includes:

• No defense against application reverse engineering. As a result, malicious users can understand how the app works and find a vulnerability that would allow them to obtain access to server-side infrastructure or to the car’s multimedia system
• No code integrity check, which is important because it enables criminals to incorporate their own code in the app and replace the original program with a fake one
• No rooting detection techniques. Root rights provide Trojans with almost endless capabilities and leave the app defenseless
• Lack of protection against app overlaying techniques. This helps malicious apps to show phishing windows and steal users’ credentials
• Storage of logins and passwords in plain text. Using this weakness, a criminal can steal users’ data relatively easily.

One of the biggest damages a hacker can do is to gain control over the car and steal the target vehicle. They can also unlock the doors and turn off the security alarm.

Kaspersky Lab researchers advise users of connected car apps to follow these measures in order to protect their cars and private data from possible cyberattacks:

• Don’t root your Android device as this will open almost unlimited capabilities to malicious apps
• Disable the ability to install applications from sources other than official app stores-
• Keep the OS version of your device up to date in order to reduce vulnerabilities in the software and lower the risk of attack
• Install a proven security solution in order to protect your device from cyberattacks.

Staff Reporter

Picture source: Supplied photo

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The move will also trim Nissan’s costs.

Nissan’s battery-electric Leaf, the industry’s first mass-market, all-electric car launched in 2010, is the world’s top-selling electric vehicle (EV), but sales have failed to reach initial targets. Globally, more than 250,000 Leaf cars have been sold.

With drivers yet to be fully won over by electric cars, Nissan hopes its new “near-electric” hybrid – which shares some parts with the Leaf – will allow it to shave costs and fend off competition in developing cheaper electric cars.

It’s a reversal of sorts for Nissan. When it developed the Leaf, CEO Carlos Ghosn signalled Nissan would leapfrog gasoline-hybrid technology and go straight to battery-powered cars with zero emissions.

That has left it trailing rivals including Toyota Motor Corp in hybrids, a segment between gasoline-powered cars and EVs. Toyota has sold more than 9 million hybrids since it launched the Prius in 1997.

“We can’t avoid the fact that EVs remain expensive compared with conventional gasoline vehicles, while there’s also an ongoing assumption that EVs aren’t suited to travelling long ranges,” Hideyuki Sakamoto, a Nissan executive vice president, told Reuters.

SHARES PARTS

Late last year, Nissan launched the e-Note, a compact hatchback that uses the same motor as the Leaf. The Note operates like an EV, but instead of drawing its power from a large, costly battery, it uses a smaller battery that is charged by a gasoline engine.

The result is similar to General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt, an electric car that resorts to its engine for charge when the battery is running low.

With a starting price of 1.77 million yen ($15,577), the e-Note, so far available only in Japan, is nearly 40 percent cheaper than the all-electric Leaf.

Nissan says affordability is key to attracting drivers and eventually getting them to upgrade to pure electric cars.

Sakamoto said he hopes to eventually use the Note’s new e-Power hybrid system for most of Nissan’s hybrid offerings – helping lower production costs for both hybrids and EVs.

“Until now, components including the inverter and motor were different between our hybrids and EVs. But the new system is different in that it shares parts with the Leaf. This creates manufacturing efficiencies,” he said, declining to give details.

HYBRID DETOUR

The e-Power system is Nissan’s second foray into hybrids.

It launched its first in 2010, but with a limited range of hybrid models Nissan shipped just 95,000 such vehicles in the year to last March, a fraction of its total global sales of 5.4 million vehicles.

Nissan has said it is developing affordable, compact EVs for China, the world’s biggest autos market, and may use a plug-in hybrid system developed by Mitsubishi Motors, in which it bought a controlling stake last year. It is also developing a fuel cell vehicle which runs on electric power generated from ethanol.

Tougher emissions regulations, particularly in China, promote battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars over gasoline hybrids and conventional gasoline vehicles.

($1 = 113.6300 yen)

—Reuters

Image: nissanusa.com

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Airbus last year formed a division called Urban Air Mobility that is exploring concepts such as a vehicle to transport individuals or a helicopter-style vehicle that can carry multiple riders. The aim would be for people to book the vehicle using an app, similar to car-sharing schemes.

“One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground,” Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year.

“We are in an experimentation phase, we take this development very seriously,” he said, adding that Airbus recognized such technologies would have to be clean to avoid further polluting congested cities.

He said using the skies could also reduce costs for city infrastructure planners. “With flying, you don’t need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads,” he said.

Enders said Airbus, as the world’s largest maker of commercial helicopters, wanted to invest to make the most of new technologies such as autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, to usher in what amounts to an era of flying cars.

“If we ignore these developments, we will be pushed out of important segments of the business,” he said.

A spokesman for Airbus declined to say how much the company was investing in urban mobility.

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The automotive technology showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show over the past week was in part about self-driving vehicles, but also about personalizing the driving experience.

Artificial intelligence and facial recognition will allow vehicles to let you in (if it’s your car), and adjust the seating, lighting, music or other elements of the environment for you, automatically.

“The idea is to be more than a machine, to be a partner, make you happy,” said Toyota’s Amanda McCoy, who explained some of the innovations of the Japanese automaker’s Concept-i vehicle at the Las Vegas tech show.

The manufacturers want the car to hold a conversation, help you make a shopping list and determine where and how you want to travel.

In a demonstration, the Toyota vehicle started a conversation and suggested potential destinations for the driver. Its camera detected that the driver was in an upbeat mood and thus suggested “the happier route.”

The concept car will also keep a driver alert to potential perils on the road, with sound and light signals. Moving to autonomous mode, it allows the seats to recline.

Swiss-based group Rinspeed showed a prototype electric car called Oasis with a miniature garden inside.

The vehicle with an “intelligent rolling chassis” can also operate in autonomous mode, converting its windshield into a screen for videoconferencing.

“The interior of the car in the future will be redefined entirely, to meet different needs,” said Rinspeed chief executive Frank Rinderknecht.

Rinderknecht said the company has no plans to produce an entire vehicle but use elements of the company’s technology, which could be available in a few years.

Other technologies shown in Las Vegas could turn the car into a payments platform. Honda, for example, said it was working with Visa to allow motorists to pay directly from the vehicle for parking or refueling, for example.

Several automakers at CES unveiled plans to move forward on autonomous driving technology. But they also showcased ways to incorporate virtual and augmented reality, use voice systems and other technology to personalize the experience.

One part of that experience is the “digital assistant” which is making inroads in connected homes.

Ford announced it would incorporate voice-controlled Amazon’s Alexa onboard while Renault-Nissan and BMW announced plans to use Microsoft Cortana.

Hyundai is installing sensors in its seating which evaluate posture and in seatbelts to monitor respiration. This could allow an intelligent car to know if a driver is having a heart attack or falling asleep at the wheel.

The South Korean giant is experimenting with a number of ways to deal with different scenarios: it may use blue lights or cold air to wake up a groggy driver, or change the enviroment to calm a stressful one.

“If we can see the mood (of the driver), we can probably do something with this information and modify the environment,” said Hyundai’s David Mitropoulos-Rundus.

Even if a car is autonomous, Mitropoulos-Rundus said there will be times when a driver will need to assume control, and the automaker want a system to “re-engage him in emergency situation.”—AFP

Image: ces.tech

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While some companies, such as Tesla Motors, General Motors and Ford Motor, are trying to develop proprietary driverless systems, a larger group of automakers appears to have decided it makes more sense to develop self-driving technology in collaboration with suppliers – as many other features such as anti-lock brakes or radar-enabled cruise control already are.

“What’s going on in the industry right now is like a hyper version of musical chairs – and the music is still playing,” said Gill Pratt, chief executive officer of Toyota Research Institute. “Everyone is changing partners.”

Several suppliers – notably Mobileye, Nvidia and Delphi Automotive – are among the more popular technology partners in the self-driving race, with multiple alliances around the globe.

“If you want to build a truly autonomous car, this is a task for more than one player,” said Amnon Shashua, chief executive of Mobileye, an Israeli-based supplier of mapping and vision-based sensing systems.

“The technological challenges are immense,” Shashua told Reuters. “I would compare it to sending a man to the moon.”

Mobileye supplies cameras, chips and software for driver assist systems – the building blocks for self-driving cars – to more than two dozen manufacturers around the globe. The company was an early supplier of vision systems to Tesla, but the two companies had an acrimonious and public breakup last summer after the driver of a Tesla Model S was killed while operating his vehicle using Tesla’s Autopilot system.

Since the break with Tesla, Mobileye has secured two critical partnerships to develop self-driving systems: With German automaker BMW and U.S. chipmaker Intel , and with longtime supplier Delphi.

The Delphi-Mobileye alliance involves a turn-key system that the partners plan to offer to smaller automakers that lack the resources to develop such systems on their own. It will be ready for production by 2019, said Jeff Owens, Delphi’s chief technology officer, with a projected wholesale cost of about $8,000.

The alliance with BMW and Intel is expected to draw additional vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, according to Elmar Frickenstein, BMW’s senior vice president for automated driving.

“We would like to create a standard system for everybody to use by 2021,” Frickenstein said. “That would share the costs and speed up the process of development and adoption.”

Eventually, BMW and its partners could offer self-driving hardware and software sets or an entire driverless system on a non-exclusive basis to companies ranging from Uber to Google, Frickenstein said.

A blueprint for collaboration is BMW’s joint ownership with Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG’s Audi of Here, the mapping company acquired in late 2015 from Nokia . Since then, both Intel and Mobileye have teamed with Here to pool and share data.

Chipmaker Nvidia also is ramping up its partnerships in self-driving technology and systems, this week announcing deals with Audi and Here, as well as German suppliers ZF and Bosch.

“We’re not looking to develop a proprietary system,” said Dirk Hoheisel, the member of Bosch’s board of management who oversees autonomous driving. “We want to work with others to develop a standard platform and open standards for self-driving systems, especially around data and mapping.”

While pursuing similar partnerships with suppliers, Audi sees its role as a vehicle manufacturer evolving to that of systems integrator.

“There’s not one supplier out there who can provide the whole solution – no one who knows everything, every part of what’s needed to make an autonomous car,” said Alejandro Vukotich, Audi’s head of development for driver assistance systems.

Some key components of self-driving systems – cybersecurity, for instance – should remain the responsibility of vehicle manufacturers, said Guillaume Devauchelle, head of innovation and scientific development at French supplier Valeo.

But carmakers also will continue to rely on suppliers to provide specific self-driving technologies, he said.

“There will be a mix because it’s quite a complex system (with) sensing, data fusion, artificial intelligence, connectivity, man-machine interface and so on,” Devauchelle said. “Those are big blocks.”—Reuters

Image: Alamy

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