Delphi says suppliers which achieve innovations towards autonomous transportation and boost the quest to end road deaths, will be the “winners” as technology towards self-driving moves relentlessly forward.
Many component producers are involved in the effort to cut out injuries and deaths from new vehicles, with OEMs such as Volvo for example, setting a goal of 2020 as a target.
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“What if we eliminate all traffic fatalities?” Delphi Europe, Middle East and Africa [EMEA] president, Michael Gassen, told last week’s (27 November) CLEPA Aftermarket Conference in Brussels.
“Will this generation be the one when autonomous driving becomes a reality? The companies that achieve these innovations will be the ones to win.
“Being able to understand the megatrends and concentrating on R&D, is the key to realising the full potential of this perfect storm.”
The EMEA chief noted someone died around the world “every 30 seconds” in a road traffic accident, with suppliers and OEMs working on ways to cut and stamp out fatalities and injuries.
By 2017, Volvo will have 100 people operating self-driving cars in its home city of Gothenburg, garnering real-time data, while the automaker has also teamed up with proving ground AstaZero near the same Swedish city to focus on active safety systems.
As well as Volvo, AstaZero is working with Scania, Autoliv and Test Site Sweden, while academia and government authorities are equally on the site, simulating a range of conditions such as busy city roads, multi-lane highways, crossroads and how cars interact with pedestrians, bicycles, mopeds, trucks, buses and animals, that randomly appear.
“It makes sense to develop safety systems that can help mitigate driving mistakes,” said Gassen. “Today, we are seeing the tipping point in that. OEMs [and] customers are seeing it the same way.
“Rates of the worst types of accidents have been cut in half. I don’t know about you, but we like that scenario.”
Delphi recently announced it will partner with Ottomatika, a company started by Carnegie Mellon University, which provides advanced automated driving software, to jointly develop technology to accelerate automated driving.
The US supplier will integrate its active safety technologies with Ottomatika’s automated driving software. The combination of the two creates a technology platform it says, that enables a vehicle to make human-like decisions when driving in the city or on the highway.
