Delphi and Mobileye develop self-driving technology – CAR PRODUCTION

Vanessa Heder on 23rd August 2016 at 08:35

In the race for the development of self-driving cars, the supplier firm Delphi Automotive and Mobileye join forces. They intend to develop a system for fully autonomous driving. The carmaker should be able to block this system from 2019 in their vehicles.

Volvo is already testing 2017 self-propelled cars publicly. Image: Volvo

The development partnership is standard systems produce, which can be used in all types of vehicles, from small cars to SUVs to pickup Trucks. The two companies will thus play a central role in the self-driving technology. Auto and technology companies are currently working flat out on the development of the self-propelled vehicle.

Delphi, at the time of General Motors (GM) is eliminated, and Mobileye headquartered in Jerusalem provide with sensors and software already important building blocks for self-driving development programs to the automaker. The shares of both companies have recently come under pressure, because the car sales growth has probably peaked and work towards the customers of the two suppliers on developing more components themselves.

While leaving the automaker in general more components their suppliers, but in self-driving technology, they tend to rely on their own expertise or to bring them into the house, to keep control. GM has about bought this year Cruise Automation, a developer of self-propelled cars to drive his research faster. Ford announced last week to invest in a number of technology companies and working with them to bring by 2021 a car without steering wheel and pedals on the market.

The first demonstration in planned in January

Delphi CEO Kevin Clark said in an interview that his company and Mobileye wanted jointly shouldering much of the development work for automakers had done well under the outsourcing of important technological developments.

“We are able to take both the investment and the technology and implementation risk to us, so it will not be repeatedly carried by the automakers must” Clark said. The two plan to invest together “several hundred million dollars” in this effort, it said. Details did not want to call a spokesman on request.

In January Delphi and Mobileye want to demonstrate a system that can navigate a car through difficult conditions, turn around in a roundabout to merge onto the freeway traffic or turn over several lanes across left.

The two groups have close ties to automakers, their system will not be operational before of 2019. They say that it can take two years to integrate its technology in future cars. Thus, it is unlikely that their systems are on the market before 2021 or 2022nd

Others are faster

Mobileye Chairman and -Technologievorstand Amnon Shashua spoke of a “new form of driving intelligence”. The decisions of a driver in complex situations to be imitated. “If we do not want to robot systems, which remain stuck in traffic, clogging the cities, must be equipped with intelligence these systems,” said the manager.

The estimated time until the start of production could for disadvantage for the new alliance will be. The Google Alphabet parent company, GM and others have signaled earlier launches its developments. Volvo will test self-driving cars public next year. Nissan and Tesla intend to introduce competing until the end of the decade systems.

The project Mobileye and Delphi could also find at smaller and medium-sized automakers appeal which do not have the financial resources of GM and others to the capital-intensive research to finance the systems. Mobileye already has partnerships with several automakers, including BMW.

Other big suppliers support their ambitions of self-driving technology acquisitions. So paid about Continental last year around 680 million dollars for the Finnish software provider Elektrobit Automotive.

Mobileye is at the forefront in the production of components for semi-autonomous driving, yielded about the core technology for the autopilot driving assist system in Tesla. Moreover Mobileye provides card systems which provide images with the aid of the cameras and sensors of a car can detect roads in real time.

After the sensational fatal accident of Tesla in May Mobileye and the electric carmaker went however in dispute Tesla’s use of technology separate ways. The abrupt end of the partnership shows that the relationships between technology suppliers and car manufacturers do not always run smoothly.

“At this early stage, the automakers have an interest to do much as possible themselves,” said analyst Jeremy Carlson of IHS Automotive. “The automakers are ultimately responsible for all of these systems. Therefore, you must know how these systems work.”