December 2020 – IoT Whitebook

Volkswagen significantly expands charging infrastructure

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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EuNetworks acquires Loop Manchester

EuNetworks Fiber UK Limited a Western European bandwidth infrastructure company, announced that it has acquired 100% of the shares of The Loop Manchester Limited, from Gamma Telecom Holdings Limited. The Loop is a duct and sub-duct based fibre network in Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom.

The Loop launched in 2012 and has a unique duct network stretching more than 87km across the key commercial areas of Manchester, Salford and Trafford. With over 180km of high capacity fibre cables, it connects into 20 data centres, two Exchanges and provides high capacity internet into more than 70 key multi-tenant commercial buildings.

Approximately 48km of the duct network is entirely unique routing from alternative operators in the city. That routing combined with 700 chambers and expansion capability, offers a strong compliment to EuNetworks current fibre network in Manchester. As well as serving the growing Manchester media sector, The Loop’s customers include major data centre operators, enterprises and public sector organisations.

EuNetworks is focused on delivering high bandwidth fibre connectivity between and within cities in Europe. The company owns and operates deep fibre networks in 17 cities, including Manchester, and also operates a highly differentiated long haul network that spans 15 countries. EuNetworks continues to invest in its network, building unique routes, adding multiple diverse paths and extending reach into key hyperscale data centre sites, data centre clusters and network aggregation points.

These investments continue to fuel the company’s growth and are driven by the capacity requirements of EuNetworks’ customers. At the heart of this is the company’s direct, diverse connectivity to over 440 data centres across Western Europe.

Brady Rafuse

“Manchester is an important and growing digital hub and we have been keen to develop our presence in the for some time. It also enhances our Super Highway that runs from Dublin through to Manchester, London and Lowestoft,” says Brady Rafuse, chief executive officer of EuNetworks.

“The acquisition of The Loop network strengthens our customer proposition in the bandwidth infrastructure market. As well as adding unique routes to our Manchester metro, the Loop provides us with a more local presence, the flexibility to connect more data centres and buildings and the opportunity for further expansion.”

“Prior to this acquisition, our Manchester metro consisted of 42km of duct network, 276 chambers and direct connection into 17 data centres. The combined footprint will deliver immediate value to both existing customers and our new customers that we welcome from The Loop.”

Andrew Taylor, Gamma’s chief executive officer, commented, “We have developed The Loop into a successful and growing business which is now ready for its next phase and we’re really pleased that EuNetworks has chosen to be its ensuing owner. EuNetworks’ extensive fibre footprint across Europe and the UK coupled with their customer centred approach to network development and investment is both impressive and innovative.”

Ashley Griffiths

“This is a great match for The Loop and we are delighted to have been acquired by EuNetworks and to be joining the team,” says Ashley Griffiths, managing director of The Loop.

“We’ve worked closely with EuNetworks for a number of years in Manchester and I know our customers will immediately benefit from this acquisition. We remain focused on delivering a great service experience as well as more fibre-based service options to our customers.”

“We anticipate a rapid integration of The Loop into EuNetworks,” added Rafuse. “We are delighted to welcome Ashley and the team into the EuNetworks group along with their customers and suppliers. Their local knowledge, expertise, impressive development and strong relationships in the market are invaluable as we look to grow EuNetworks’ presence in the region.

In addition, our focus on the media sector is immediately strengthened with their knowledge and strong reputation among the media and broadcast community in Manchester and the UK. There’s a great opportunity from the teams and the networks coming together to develop and future-proof some of the larger content requirements of these companies.”

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‘Huge increase’ in demand for connected car data solutions

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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Shape Process Automation orders XMReality remote guidance

Shape Process Automation, which offers products and services within robotic solutions and process automation within the industrial sector, orders XMReality Remote Guidance. The company will use Remote Guidance primarily for their customer support.

“We are proud and honoured to be selected by Shape Process Automation. After a successful seven-month pilot project, the customer has now chosen to push forward with an annual twelve month subscription. We look forward to supporting the company going forward”, says Jorgen Remmelg, CEO at XMReality.

XMReality Remote Guidance is an augmented reality (AR)-enabled knowledge sharing tool that lets you communicate with gestures, speech, chat and pointers with someone at a completely different place. It includes:

A hands-overlay technology that lets you guide someone else’s hands as if you were there.
A web portal to manage teams and users, and to measure usage
Integration through client-side API’s (Application Programming Interfaces)

Shape Process Automation helps manufacturers around the world improve operations through automation, technology, and process advancements. The company has developed robotic waterjet cutting innovations in Europe and North America. It is advancing proven technologies through robotic integration, and aims to improve new industries around the world.

The global locations are strategically placed in the world’s most prominent manufacturing locations. Shape Process Automation has 12,000+ active robotic solutions and more than 450 employees worldwide.

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Verizon and AWS bring MEC to Denver and Seattle

Developers and businesses can tap into the power of Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength in two new locations, Denver and Seattle. Verizon 5G Edge, a mobile edge computing (MEC) platform, lets developers build applications for mobile end-users and wireless edge devices with ultra-low latency, extended battery life, massive throughput and more. Verizon and AWS launched Verizon 5G Edge

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Qualcomm and Great Wall Motor Work to deliver premium smart mobility experiences

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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Qualcomm and Great Wall Motor Work to deliver premium smart mobility experiences

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KATEK acquires Leesys Group in Leipzig

KATEK SE, the German electronics service provider, acquires the Leipzig-based Leesys Group. The Munich-based electronics service provider is thus continuing on its growth path.

The finalisation of the transaction is planned for the beginning of next year and is subject to the approval of the antitrust authorities, broad employee approval of the transfer and the conclusion of an in-house collective bargaining agreement that will keep the Leipzig site competitive in the long term.

Leesys has been successful in the market for years, but opened insolvency in self-administration due to the collapse in sales of two major customers in the crisis year 2020. KATEK takes over in the course of the transaction:

the Leipzig electronics site with just under 250 employees, as well as all obligations arising from ongoing business operations with customers and suppliers,
the Leesys site in Lithuania
as well as the TeleAlarm Group with locations in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany a market provider in the field of hardware and software solutions that help elderly people and people with physical disabilities to lead a self-determined life in their familiar surroundings.

Rainer Koppitz, CEO of the KATEK Group says, “Leesys, the future KATEK Leipzig GmbH, with its subsidiary TeleAlarm, will become another independently managed speedboat of the KATEK fleet. We are pleased that we were able to convince the long-standing managing director Dr. Arnd Karden to continue his consistent course of economically sustainable positioning in the future as part of the KATEK family.”

Dr. Arnd Karden, future managing director of KATEK Leipzig GmbH, adds, “We are pleased to have a partner in KATEK SE that will enable us to continue the successful course we have been pursuing in recent years. Our expertise in the development and production of complete systems, especially in the automotive, industry and smart city sectors, has led to numerous successful projects with our customers; for example, in products for eMobility such as charging technology or for IoT applications. I would like to thank our customers, as well as our suppliers and employees, for their loyalty, and promise to continue our successful cooperation.”

The acquisition is a logical continuation of KATEK’s strategy of further growth in its core area of electronics services, while at the same time building up new competencies in the high-potential, sophisticated area of high-value electronics. This includes, for example, TeleAlarm with its successful solutions in the health care market.

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