Month: December 2020

The Volkswagen brand is significantly expanding the charging infrastructure at its German sites.

Some 750 new charging points are planned for next year, including the High Power Charging stations with up to 300 kW power. Some 2,000 charging points in total are expected to be in operation by the end of 2021 – over 50% more than at present. Currently, there are already more than 1,200 charging points at Volkswagen’s ten sites in Germany.

A large share are publicly accessible and can also be used by EV drivers who do not work for Volkswagen. The biggest charging park with some 500 charging points is located in Wolfsburg.

Further parks have been installed in Hanover, Brunswick, Salzgitter, Kassel, Emden, Osnabrück, Zwickau, Chemnitz and Dresden. In the last twelve months alone, Volkswagen recorded over 50,000 charging operations at its sites in spite of corona. The power comes exclusively from renewable energy sources.

Thomas Ulbrich, member of the board of management of the Volkswagen Brand responsible for E-mobility, says, “As announced, 2020 marked the start of Volkswagen’s major electric offensive. We successfully launched the ID.3, and are already following that up with the next model, the ID.4.”

“Volkswagen is also making an important contribution to the urgently needed expansion of the charging infrastructure. We need significantly more charging points in Germany and Europe if electric vehicles are to establish themselves quickly. For that reason, all players from the fields of politics and industry must continue their efforts in the coming year.”

The Volkswagen brand has a comprehensive commitment to charging. Some 4,000 charging points are to be installed at the brand’s sites by 2025. Volkswagen dealers are also expanding new charging options on a large scale. In future, every Volkswagen dealer in Germany will provide at least one AC charger with 11 kW power and one DC charger with 22 kW power. In addition, the Group engages worldwide in setting up fast-charging networks – via Ionity in Europe, Electrify America in the USA and CAMS in China.

High demand for ID. Charger wallboxes

Volkswagen also offers proprietary wallboxes, charging services and green power tariffs via its subsidiary Elli. Home charging is booming: In the last three months alone, private wallbox deliveries by Elli ran at a five-digit figure. In Germany, demand is driven by the incentive program for private charging stations that offers a €900 bonus for the purchase of connected wallboxes. Volkswagen supplies two models eligible for the bonus – the ID. Charger Connect (€599) and the ID. Charger Pro (€849). Despite high demand, delivery time for these models is currently approximately two weeks.

Volkswagen claims to be the first automaker to commit to the Paris Agreement and aims to become climate neutral by 2050. Under its long-term planning for the next ten years, the Group intends to launch some 70 all-electric models by 2030. Around 20 of these are already in production, with 50 more to follow. The Planning Round envisages production of approximately 26 million fully-electric cars by 2030. The Group plans to spend some €35 billion on e-mobility alone.

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Data from ITS Telematics Solutions, provider in connected car data management, shows that more drivers are starting to understand the benefits of connected car data. It is also influencing how we are buying new vehicles and choosing our car insurance sector.

In 2021, according to the company, many more drivers will benefit from connected car data solutions such as proactive First Notification of Loss (FNOL) service along with tailored Usage Based Insurance (UBI) insurance solutions such as Pay as You Drive (PAYD) and many other value-added services.

The connected car data firm has been monitoring data to highlight how UK drivers are changing how they use their vehicles on a day-to-day basis, with mileage dropping every year since 2002, many more drivers opting for leasing vehicles with a limited annual mileage, electric car sales increase by more than 250% and millions of us now working from home. 

Proactive FNOL is a cutting-edge solution that can benefit drivers, vehicle manufacturers and insurance firm. ITS offer an advanced crash algorithm that alerts the vehicle manufacturer and insurance firm when an incident happens.

This ‘alert’ includes data showing the location of the incident, speed of impact and predicted damage, meaning the insurance firm can react immediately to the situation without the driver having to inform them.

The Connected car data market is expected to grow by 270% over the next two years and this data is starting to be adopted by many organisations along with drivers as it allows us to understand how we are using vehicles, traffic trends, and how we are using roads, town centres and even parking

Neil Beckingham, COO at ITS, comments, “As we monitor connected car data it clearly illustrates that vehicle manufacturers, insurers and retailers need to evolve and offer solutions that match driver requirements by taking advantage of all the benefits this data can offer. Drivers continue to embrace this technology and it would seem that earlier adopters of these advanced solutions will lead the way in the future of car manufacturing and insurance solutions.”

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Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Great Wall Motor Company Limited (GWM) announced the companies’ working relationship in autonomous driving, under which GWM will use the Qualcomm® Snapdragon Ride Platform to build its advanced intelligent driving system of high computing power GWM “Coffee Intelligence” system and adopt the system in its premium production vehicles starting in 2022.

GWM is among the automakers in China to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride Platform. The expanding relationship between the two companies will facilitate accelerated commercialisation of autonomous driving and delivery of new driving experiences that meet the demand in future smart mobility scenarios.

The Snapdragon Ride Platform, one of the automotive industry’s advanced, scalable and open automated driving solutions, aims to address the complexity of autonomous driving (AD) and Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) use cases across industry segments by leveraging its high-performance, power-efficient hardware, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and autonomous driving stack to deliver a comprehensive, cost and energy efficient systems solution for multiple classes of vehicles.

The Snapdragon Ride Platform is built on scalable and modular heterogenous high-performance multi-core CPUs, energy efficient AI and computer vision (CV) engines and cutting-edge GPU to support multiple segments of autonomous driving and offer thermal efficiency.

The new GWM “Coffee Intelligence” system based on the Snapdragon Ride Platform will provide computing performance with its exceptional computing power at power efficiency. The GWM “Coffee Intelligence” system supports multiple high-resolution cameras and offers users L2+ and L3 intelligent driving capabilities with multi-source heterogenous sensors.

Moreover, paired with an upgraded solution featuring two standard high-computing power platforms, this intelligent driving system can deliver computing power of 700+ TOPS and reserve sufficient hardware capabilities and computational redundancy for L4/L5 and more complicated full-scenario autonomous driving capabilities.

“GWM and Qualcomm Technologies have deep and longstanding relationship across many technology areas. The Snapdragon Ride Platform brings forth Qualcomm Technologies’ deep expertise in computing, AI, connectivity and security, and is designed for demanding automotive safety,” says Lei Xian, vice president of sales and business development, Qualcomm International (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. “We are pleased to support GWM’s technological innovation with this solution to build next-generation premium vehicles for multiple segments of autonomous driving.”

“Data explosion in the era of AI has driven a huge demand for data processing throughput and computing power. Thanks to the high computing capabilities and scalability of the Snapdragon Ride Platform, GWM will be able to offer comprehensive multi-segment capabilities in our future vehicles, from driver assistance system to high-level autonomous driving,” says Kai Zhang, head of Intelligent Driving, Great Wall Motor. “This advanced autonomous driving technology will enable the transformation of GWM from automaker to the ‘global mobility technology company’.”

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Berg Insight released new findings about the market for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) for electric buses. The market value for electric bus ITS deployed in public transport operations in Europe was €12.7 million in 2019.

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.5%, this number is expected to reach €62.4 million by 2024. The North American market for electric bus ITS is similarly forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 34.2% from €2.7 million in 2019 to reach €11.8 million in 2024. Berg Insight is of the opinion that the market for ITS solutions for electric buses is in a growth phase which will last for several years to come.

Mega-challenges such as urbanisation, climate change and traffic congestion continue to encourage investments in electric buses and ITS, contributing to a positive outlook for the market.

Some ITS players offer complete turnkey solutions including functionality for most of the ITS applications for electric buses utilised by public transport operators, but many vendors on the market are also specialised ITS players focusing on a few sub-systems. Major international ITS players such as INIT, IVU, Clever Devices and Trapeze can provide turnkey solutions.

INIT and IVU have customers mainly in Europe, while Clever Devices and Trapeze are in an early phase. The latter is expected to have the first deployment in early 2021. ENGIE Solutions has installed the CAD/AVL system Navineo on electric buses in France and can provide charging solutions for buses as part of the Charge&Go-solution.

One of the telematics providers in Europe and North America for electric buses is ViriCiti, offering hardware and software for the management of buses and charging stations. Other important vendors serving public transport companies with different types of solutions include the Scandinavian companies Consat Telematics, FARA and Sagasystem. The Canadian company GIRO is an important player in the scheduling and planning segment, while PSI Transcom is a prominent provider of depot and charging management software in Europe.

“The market for ITS solutions for electric buses is expected to grow significantly in the coming years”, says Adam Bjorkman, IoT analyst, Berg Insight. The integration of electric buses and charging stations increases the need for ITS solutions connecting all the necessary infrastructure including electric buses, charging stations and depots.

Many operators and agencies start by investing in a basic monitoring solution, but as the bus fleets go from pilot projects to larger deployments, the actors need to complement with additional subsystems for dispatching, scheduling, charging station management and depot management.

“Many European countries have moved from the pilot stage in the last years, and ITS solutions will have a crucial role when the fleets become larger,” concludes Bjorkman.

Click here to download the report brochure: Connected Infrastructure for Electric Buses

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FIXD Review has to be one of the innovative devices in the current market scenario. People interested in detecting problems in their cars automatically can use the device without having to go to a mechanic.

It comes with an app that has to be downloaded from Google Play Store or the Apple Store. This app is what gives real-time alerts regarding potential issues in the user’s car. As per the creators, the device can detect over 7,000 problems. The best aspect of the device is the “repair estimate” feature that calculates the probable cost, saving users from exploitation at the hands of the mechanics.

Another feature that makes the device stand out is its compatibility with any diesel, hybrid, or gas car, given that the model was produced after 1996. Once users have connected the device with their cars, whenever the car health maintenance monitor detects a problem, the “check engine light” starts to blink. Then, the users can go straight to the app and see what the actual issue is.

There’s also a “maintenance timeline” feature that suggests to the user when their car is due for maintenance. Before recommending maintenance, the device considers several significant determinants such as engine oil, O2 sensor, date of last maintenance, mileage detection, and others.

Today, the car repair industry has become one of the most sought-after industries with its sales skyrocketing every year. This is primarily because of the ever-increasing number of cars on the road. The statistics on the subject backs the claim mentioned above.

The car sales figures for light vehicles in the US in 1978 was around 15 million and it increased to 18 million by 2018. This marks a 20% increase in only the light vehicle industry. According to another statistic, by 2021, more than 18% of car owners in America will require car service at least once a year. And, with the cars aged over 12 years increasing with every passing day, the numbers are sure to go northwards.

Customers across the United States have only positive things to highlight about the car health regulating device. One user states, “thank god, I decided to buy FIXD Review for my car. I have never been so happy with my car maintenance. Earlier, I was losing a lot of money on car repairs as my mechanic exploited me, left, right, and centre. After I connected FIXD Review with my car, it showed me the repairs required by my car and gave me the estimated cost of the repair.

It helped me avoid the ill-treatment at the mechanic’s hands. The associated app is easy to operate as well. A big thanks to the creators of FIXD!”. There are myriad such statements provided by the customers of the FIXD Review device. These only go on to prove the developers’ claim that the users of the device will benefit from it.

Regarding its operation, the FIXD Review device is very easy to use. First, when the device arrives, users have to open it, and fix it to one of the ports in their cars. In most cars, it’s under the dashboard on the side of the driver. They can also contact the customer support of the company if they fail to find the port. Now, they need to download and install the FIXD Review app, available on both Apple and Android app stores. The device now has to be linked with the app. For syncing, users have to turn on the Bluetooth in their mobile phones, then open the app, and sync their device. And it’s done! The device starts working automatically when the car engine is started.

The device uses the car battery to stay recharged at all times. So, there’s no need for users to constantly eject the device out of the car ports, charge it, and again insert it. It functions in low-power mode that won’t drain the battery of users’ cars. The FIXD app also has the “multi-vehicle control” feature that allows users to monitor the condition of various cars from only one app. To access this feature, users need to have different FIXD Review devices in all the cars. Then, they need to link it with their app. 

The developers recommend users to eject their devices from the car ports only if their car’s been sitting for over 3 weeks. Otherwise, there’s no requirement of removing the device from the car. It will not drain out the battery life of the car as it runs on a low-energy mode.

Now, there are multiple packages of the device available on the company’s official website. Interested buyers can visit their website and select the most suitable package for themselves based on the number of cars they own. The manufacturer also backs the device with a 30-day refund guarantee and a one-year warranty for the satisfaction of its customers.

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