AUTO Connected CAR News’ Top, Best, Must-See Car Tech @IntCES: Mecredes, Audi, BMW, Ford, GM & more

At International CES, there will be more connected car tech exhibited that ever before.  AUTO Connected News be there and so far these are the displays and demonstrations that we will be covering. A total of ten automakers will be displaying at the event. On top of the automakers, there will be many after market companies as well as new accessories and technology.

Mercedes-Benz Debut

Mercedes-Benz head Dieter Zetsche will speak and debut a new car concept. Dr. Zetsche will discuss autonomous vehicle technology and its impact on society, mobility and environment, as well as raise ideas and questions for the future. In addition to his insights on the future of Daimler Intelligence Drive, Dr. Zetsche’s 2015 CES keynote will feature the world-debut of a new car concept.  In fact Mercedes-Benz on Twitter showed a photo of shadow of a slick-looking car with the hastag “#mbCES” and phrase “The future will be bolder than you’ve ever imagined” @MercedesBenz.

cesmercedesbenzAudi Piloted Driving

Audi returns to CES by demonstrating innovations that are bringing Piloted driving, the Connected car, lighting advances. Audi promises “revolutionary operating controls and display concept in the new Audi Q7.” Audi has outfitted a A7 with auto pilot and it is driving itself from the San Francisco Bay Area to Las Vegas, and the 2015 International CES for 550 miles. The car will be going through Bakersfield.

The Audi A7 can drive at 0 to 70 mph, but when it gets near urban area it will alert the driver to take over manual control. If the driver does not take over, the Audi will turn on its flashers and pull over onto the shoulder. While on freeways, the A7 can initiate its own lane changes and passes. Hoepfully it will arrive in time for the news conference on Tuesday at

BMW will be showing off its latest technology including BMW remote valet parking and retrieval with a smartwatch. BMW will also show the connected Drive Store. Future model BMWs will have SIMs in all American cars for connectivity.

First View of Renovo

The  Renovo Coupe will be featured at the NVIDIA Booth (#30307) CES will offer the first public viewing of the latest prototype. The Renovo Coupe is powered by a patent-pending 740 volt lithium-ion battery pack. The Coupe can go from 0-60 MPH in under 3.4 seconds making it the fastest production rear-wheel drive electric vehicle in the world.

Volvo Helmet with a View & Safety Warnings

Volvo Cars cycle helmet communicates with cars to avoid collisions. The car will be alerted to a nearby cyclist through a head-up display alert, even if the cyclist is in a blind spot. The cyclist will be warned via a helmet-mounted alert light.

DENSO ADAS

DENSO will demonstrate ADAS tech. Some of those technologies, along with V2X (vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure) technology will be demonstrated on two vehicles inside DENSO’s exhibit. Also featured in DENSO’s exhibit is a Smart City installation, a miniature diorama of an intelligent future city brought to life via looping projection-mapped animation.

Ford Goes Further with Keynote

Ford CEO Mark Fields will speak. Fields will address what’s next for Ford and discuss the company’s commitment to innovation in all parts of its business. (Tuesday keynote). Ford also announced more SYNC apps, Disney weather and Life 360.

Hyundai New Displays on Display

Hyundai Display Audio infotainment systems with CarPlay and Android Auto  with AM and FM HD Radio. It has also been reported that Hyundai will show wearable devices such as smartwatches.

Key to Being Key-Free?

Keyfree claims it will forever change the way you experience a vehicle. Keyfree has created a product that allows you to control your car with your smartphone for convenience and security. With Keyfree, your car will automatically unlock as you approach. Starting the car can be done with a push of a button either on your phone or Keyfree’s push to start button in the car.  Keyfree also makes it easy to share keys to other smartphone devices while simultaneously pushing you real time information on the activity status of your car.

NVIDIA New Chips

NVIDIA announced news computer chips for cars.

The new NVIDIA DRIVE PX can connect 12 camera and extremely sophisticated image processing and record the information into a data recorder inside the car. On the circuit boardare two Tegra X1s. This gives 2.3 teraflops of processing power to process 1.3 billion pixels a second. DRIVE CX, includes the hardware, middleware and creative tools needed for a digital cockpit computer, which can process nearly 17 megapixesl, equivalent to two 4K screens. DRIVE Studio is a platform for partners to integrate the NVIDIA technology. The cockpit cluster can be rendered in 3D.

News Conferences

Toyota will have a scientist teaching about fuel cell vehicles that combine hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity to power a car, its FCV, to be made 2015 and be sold primarily in California. VW will discuss a selection of vehicle studies, technologies and services from the development to the “digitization of mobility.” At the Kenwood press conference, we suspect there will be new in-vehicle infotainment systems.

Panasonic Aupeo! & e-Cockpit

At the CES, Panasonic will introduce the next-generation version of its Aupeo streaming radio service.

Panasonic’s e-Cockpit disperses information to center console, instrument cluster or head-up display unit. Routing the most potentially distracting information, such as an incoming phone call, through the heads-up display.

Visteon Fusion Cockpit

Visteon Fusion fuses traditional driver information, infotainment and Cloud connectivity into one connected platform, for seamless human machine interaction (HMI) experience. Visteon’s first-to-market platform allows multiple systems to run side-by-side in a virtual environment on a scalable hardware solution that is capable of incorporating multiple operating systems and extended graphics.

Bosch will show heads up displays, telematics, data logs & more car tech.

TRW ADAS

TRW provides driver assist and partially-automated functions today, and is developing the automated systems of tomorrow. TRW will demonstrate preliminary automated driving functions with safety as demonstrated by TRW (pedestrian detection, traffic jam assist, highway pilot, etc.

TRW’s next generation radar family, AC1000, can enable 360-degree sensing capabilities and the option of dual mode functionality that covers both low speed and high speed applications in one unit. Suitable for front, rear and side sensing
applications, the AC1000 can be used for a range of safety functions including
forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, emergency steering assist and pedestrian detection.

Speecup Answer to iPhone iOS 8 Bluetooth Bungle?

This item is sheer genius for retrofitting older vehicles with hands free calling and music streaming, a gesture controlled Bluetooth speaker with a microphone Speecup. It won the CES Innovations Awards, last year and a new model will be introduced this year.   An added bonus is that you can take the speaker with you any where, use it the kitchen, garage or in the garden to listen to music. The latest version is truly handsfree. In the meantime, Apple’s iOS 8/ iPhone 4S-5-6/6+ Bluetooth incompatibility with in-car systems is winning in the Edsel Yugo Biggest Snafu category in the Tech CARS Awards, vote now.

There is another possible Bluetooth solution  for iOS 8 iPhone 4S-5-6/+ audio streaming the  Griffin iTrip AUX or iTrip AUX AutoPilot.

CES Innovations Honorees

We have not seen what device the CES Safe Driving Innovations awards, however the nominees look very interesting for car tech.

ADAS One is camera from Hanyang Information & Communications is system mounted in the car with a camera that offers e-call, lane departure warning, vehicle collision warning and hands-free calling. Meanwhile Polaroid offers its own ADAS dashcams.

Möbius / Dual Lens Dashboard Camera from Zalman USA Inc. Solves two dash-cams  major flaws, use of a wide-angle lens makes license plates difficult to read and night videos are darkened due to headlights and other light sources. Möbius’ innovative use of a dual-camera system solves both issues.

Texas Instrument’s TDA System-on-Chip (SoC) is a piece of technology empowering autonomous driving functions. It is a highly optimized and part of a scalable family of devices for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Other feature we will be looking at and writing about include:

 

  • GM OnStar AtYourService @intCES with donuts, coupons, hotel bookings & safer driving insurance discounts for GM vehicles.
  • WiTricity will offer Rezence demos for connected cars & homes @intlCES.

 

The Consumer Electronics Association predicts that sales of factory-installed technologies in cars will reach $11 billion in 2015.