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Lithium-Ion Batteries are hot
Announcements are succeeding in the automotive industry around Lithium-Ion batteries. In the last weeks, we learned that PSA Peugeot Citroën was working with Mitsubishi (that has created a JCV Lithium Energy Japan with GS Yuasa) to develop electric cars, joining Volkswagen with Sanyo or Nissan with NEC. OEM suppliers are active too : Bosch has just concluded an agreement with Samsung SDI Co. and Continental is working with Enax. Japan and Europe are joining forces to develop electric cars.
BMW improves hydrogen storage
In cooperation with other partners, including European aerospace suppliers, BMW has developed a new generation of hydrogen storage tank for cars. Made with composite material, it can store 10 kg of liquid hydrogen and allows an autonomy of 500 km (instead of 200 on the current 7 Serie Hydrogen). This new tank is more flexible, reduces the weight by a third and takes up less volume in the vehicle. BMW firmly believes in hydrogen through its Clean Energy program.
Europe says yes to intelligent cars
In its plenary session, on june 19th, the European Parliament voted almost unanimously for the report concerning the Commission’s Intelligent Car Initiative. This one aims to roll out pan European E-call by 2010, to make ESC (formerly ESP) available on new cars by 2012, to accelerate advanced safety systems (ADAS), to standardize the interface for nomadic GPS devices and to ensure a communication between vehicles and between the car and the road.
End of the road for PAYD ?
Norwich Union has suspended its mileage-based insurance scheme (PAYD for Pay as you Drive), less than two years after it was launched in the UK. The concept relies on a telematic box, equipped with a GPS and GPRS connection. The system enables the insurance company to know how many km are driven, where and when. The scheme only attracted 10 % of the 100 000 customers targeted. Drivers seem to be afraid by the “Big Brother” side. However, more and more insurance companies are focusing on PAYD in whole Europe.
Navigation has a positive effect on safety
According to a survey, conducted in Europe and US for Tom Tom, GPS devices improve driving behaviour, reduce travel times and the number of km driven when driving through an unknown area. 74 % of drivers say that they feel more relaxed and less stressed when using a navigation system. GPS also heightens awareness and reduces driver workload. This survey confirms a former one, conducted by TNO and also made for Tom Tom.  More information
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IAEC conference programme
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The first conference programme is now available on the website of the event ! Do not to contact us to receive the brochure by mail.
For information the earlybird discount is available by July 15th, 2008 - do not miss the opportunity to save up to 150€ on your registration fees!
More information
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LATEST NEWS
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DANIEL MARTEAU - Head of Spare Parts Business Unit- PSA Peugeot Citroën at IAEC!
IAEC will welcome DANIEL MARTEAU - Head of Spare Parts Business Unit- PSA Peugeot Citroën, expert of telematics industry will attend the congress as Keyunote speaker on November 3, 2008 from 6.00 to 6.30 pm to present
Navteq exhibitor & sponsor 2008
Navteq will be on the exhibition area to present the last products and solution dedicated to navigation and active safety. You can visit their booth on B10
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PARTNER OF THE MONTH
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About Elektrobit
EB has established itself internationally as one of the most important suppliers of embedded software solutions for the automotive industry.
In addition to the development of innovative products, the company also specializes in services and consulting for the automotive industry, supplying implementations of serial software solutions for a broad range of AUTOSAR and FlexRay, Infotainment, Navigation, HMI and Driver Assistance systems.
EB implements consistent software standards to simplify and streamline the development process. The goals of software quality and reliability are pursued with the same commitment. More informatio
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Matthias Klauda, CEO of ETAS
« AUTOSAR will be everywhere in 5 to 10 years »
How do you consider low cost cars and the impact in the field of electronics ?
The two biggest markets today are clearly China and India. The growth in China is very impressive, if you consider that you will have 9 million new cars in 2008, vs only 1 million in 2000… But, European OEMs have mostly adapted former models to the local market, and they were not really low cost cars. In India, it’s different. The local OEMs wanted to produce an affordable and really new car. In both cases, the intelligence comes from the software. In India, they start from a white page and design a low cost electronic architecture. Bosch is the main supplier for the Tata Nano and we, at Etas, are providing the tools and a local support for the technical expertise. I consider that European and US OEMs can learn from Indians. They have fascinating solutions and a lot of projects for the future. In China, the local OEMs don’t want to make the whole ECU and rely on European suppliers who have the know how. They want to get upper class cars
What about AUTOSAR today ?
It’s not the future, it’s reality. Some OEMs, such as PSA Peugeot Citroën and BMW, are going to release very soon new models with AUTOSAR inside. It’s a huge advantage for the automotive industry, that can focus on added value for the customer. The legacy software will be encapsulated and it will be no use to re-develop several times. It will be better and cheaper. This authorized software will be “AUTOSARised”. At ETAS, we provide tools for the design of architecture, the calibration and the debugging. ASCET if one of them. It’s used for the modelisation of software components. Validating in a virtual world and in real time is very important to test the network of ECUs. AUTOSAR offers a distributed architecture, with for instance a function such as the ACC relying on 3 or 4 ECUs (engine, brake, dislay…). I’m firmly convinced that AUTOSAR will be everywhere in 5 to 10 years.
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Can you talk about your new tools and your organization ?
We want to offer to our customers a long term and stable relationship. Usually, the engineers working on development and specifications are not the same and you don’t have enough flexibility. We want to change that and we make rotate now the teams to have people on both sides. ETAS considers that the tools should be more “solution centric”, than “product centric”. The engineering business should grow by 20 % per year. Another approach is to have more feedback from users. We have invited testers to help us to design more intuitive tools. We also have new tools such as ETK and XETK (Extended ETK) to access directly to the ECUs with a high speed interface. Toyota is using them for its next generation of hybrid cars. We have a product portfolio and a powerful organization that allows us to help OEMs to face to new challenges in the field automotive electronics
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