CNET -- Hyundai's Elantra has been a tremendous success for the Korean automaker. Over 10 million Elantas have been sold, an achievement that Hyundai claims makes the Elantra the 6th-best-selling car in the world. Today, at the 2015 LA Auto Show, the Elantra enters its 6th generation.

The new Elantra doesn't look much different from the old one; the broad strokes are similar enough that the car is immediately recognizable as an Elantra. Look closely and you'll notice the details are all new. The hexagonal grille, for example, is more angular and is now flanked by vertical LED daytime running lights. The elongated roofline now stretches its arc nearly to the vehicle's end, which gives the sedan a more coupelike profile.

The headlights are narrower and sweep out horizontally, rather than back toward the windshield, which accentuates the car's width and makes it look broad. Hyundai uses a few visual tricks to make the Elantra look like a larger car, but they're not strictly necessary because the 2017 Elantra simply is a larger car than before. Though it's only about an inch longer and wider than the 2016 model, the interior volume has increased so much that the EPA now technically classifies it as a midsize sedan.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.cnet.com/products/2017-hyundai-elantra/

1-13-2017, Autoblog -- 2016 was full of talk of autonomy, but little action beyond crazy, futuristic concept cars and announcement after announcement from automakers. If this year's CES is any indication, 2017 is going to focused on connectivity. More than that, CES showed that traditional barriers between automakers are breaking down in favor of universal and open source technology standards that will benefit both consumers and developers.

CES, traditionally a showcase for the latest and greatest technology and gadgets like flat-screen refrigerators or televisions that broadcast in the fifth dimension, has become so intwined with the auto industry that we at Autoblog cover it like any other auto show. At every CES event I attended and nearly every booth I went to, there was some talk, display, or demonstration of how cars will connect to your phone and your home, and eventually each other.

It seems we're heading toward the tech singularity where all devices work under one cohesive ecosystem – the Internet of Things, if you like. The difference between autonomy and connectivity is how real the latter feels because so much of the connected tech on display at CES is either here already or will be here by the end of the year. There were dozens of demos, both big and small, that allowed us to test and explore what's on the horizon.

Bridging the gap between home and car, Ford is integrating the Amazon Alexa personal assistant straight into its vehicles. That means you'll be able to talk to Alexa in your car just like you would through an Echo or Dot at home. It also means you can shop on Amazon by voice while you're driving (since that wasn't convenient enough already). Samsung is developing smartwatch applications for Ford, BMW, and others. Toyota is adopting Ford's SmartDeviceLink smartphone connectivity system for its vehicles. That means developers can have one app that works across multiple infotainment systems.

The Linux Foundation is developing an open-source operating system that will be free to use, making it easier for developers to connect smartphones and apps across multiple manufacturers' systems. Automotive Grade Linux, or AGL, is available for download right now. Major automakers like Toyota and Daimler (who usually are set on competing with one another) are partnering to further the development of the project. Bosch, Hyundai, and Chrysler showed connected car concepts at CES that preview the future of automobiles.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Wired, 11-29-2016 -- As cars edge closer to driving themselves, it can seem they’ve already forgotten humans are still here and in control. It’s not just that systems like lane centering, and collision avoidance often leap to action or lay passive without giving the human a beep of warning or explanation. As these systems advance and cars pick up more of the load while offering more distractions, these communication problems will only prove knottier. At the same time, increasingly advanced infotainment systems make it harder to keep your eyes on the road.

Acura thinks it has found the solution to both problems. This month at the LA Auto Show, Honda’s luxury arm unveiled the Precision Cockpit, which it intends to pair with the Precision Concept vehicle it unveiled earlier this year—that look and tech could start appearing in production Acuras within a few years.1 The rethought cockpit boasts two big features: a touchpad that’s more easily controlled without looking at it, and visual graphic depictions of vehicles and obstacles that the car is tracking via its myriad cameras and sensors.

These days, infotainment systems are commonly controlled in one of two ways: a touchscreen that pulls your eyes away from what’s ahead, or a hard to use, mouse-like touchpad that controls a conventional screen. Acura has blended the two, adding “absolute position mapping” to what looks like a traditional touchpad.

“As much as people like touchscreens in their cars, because of the parallels to tablets and smartphones, it may not be the best strategy for cars,” says Acura product engineer Steven Feit. Touchscreens feel like the future, but they demand eye contact, and if they’re high up on the dash—the best position for the driver’s line of sight—they can be hard to reach. “The touchpad makes it easier to control the screen more safely,” Feit says.

Then there’s the second problem: Knowing what your ride’s up to. Right now, cars that offer features like emergency braking and collision avoidance often do a crummy job conveying information about how the car will behave, and in what circumstances. When cars reach a point where they pass control between human and robot, any uncertainty is sure to be trouble.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

The Los Angeles Auto Show (LA Auto Show) announced four additions to its Connected Car Expo® (CCE) advisory board for 2016. Damon Lavrinc of Automatic Labs, Justin Fishkin of Local Motors, Derek Kan of Lyft and Linda Campbell of QNX Software Systems Limited join nine returning board members from thought leading companies including Aeris, Elektrobit, Ellis and Associates, the City of Los Angeles, Google, Nokia Growth Partners, NVIDIA, Pandora and Strategy Analytics.

Andy Gryc of CX3 Marketing will return as Conference Director, and together with the advisory board, will set the strategic direction and focus of CCE’s conference agenda as well as select the second annual Top 10 Automotive Start-ups. CCE is held in conjunction with the LA Auto Show Press and Trade Days and will take place on Tuesday, November 15, 2016.

"We’re thrilled to continue building a network of top experts to elevate the connected car conversation," said Lisa Kaz, President of the LA Auto Show and CCE. "Year after year, the board continues to lead new and innovative discussions on technology in automotive and transportation industries; and we’re excited to see what 2016 will bring.”

About the New CCE Advisory Board Members:

• Damon Lavrinc, Head of Content and Outreach at Automatic Labs

Damon Lavrinc is the Head of Content and Outreach at Automatic Labs, a Bay Area startup that builds connected car products to empower drivers. For the past decade he's covered the auto and tech industries as the Silicon Valley Editor for Jalopnik, Transportation Editor at Wired and editor at Autoblog. Lavrinc has written for a variety of automotive and lifestyle publications focused on transportation technology, connectivity and personal mobility.

• Justin Fishkin, Chief Strategy Officer, Local Motors

Justin Fishkin is the Chief Strategy Officer of Local Motors, a technology company that designs, builds and sells vehicles. Local Motors’ platform combines global co-creation with local micro-manufacturing to bring hardware innovations (like the world’s first 3D-printed car) to market at unprecedented speed. He marries a lifelong dedication to sustainability and making a difference in the world with a background in finance and investing. Prior to joining Local Motors, Fishkin served as Senior Portfolio Manager of Carbon War Room, an organization founded by Sir Richard Branson to identify and incubate entrepreneurial solutions to climate change. He began his career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and later became an investor. He earned his BA in Economics from Duke University.

• Derek Kan, General Manager, Lyft

Derek Kan is the General Manager of Lyft and was recently nominated by President Obama to the Board of Directors of AMTRAK. Prior to this role, he served as Director of Strategy at a biotech startup, Management Consultant at Bain & Company, Advisor at Elliott Management, Policy Advisor to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and the Chief Economist for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Kan started his career as a Presidential Management Fellow at the White House Office of Management and Budget. He earned his BS from the University of Southern California, M.Sc from the London School of Economics and MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.

• Linda Campbell, Strategic Accounts, QNX Software Systems, a BlackBerry Subsidiary

Linda Campbell has held a variety of roles within the sales and marketing organization at QNX Software Systems. Prior to relocating to Silicon Valley, she was responsible for creating and managing QNX Software Systems’ strategic alliances practice - building an award-winning technology ecosystem comprising hundreds of hardware, software and services partners globally. Campbell is also the co-founder of the Women in Automotive Technology, a Silicon Valley group dedicated to driving the industry forward by fostering connections between women, ideas and industry.

Returning CCE Advisory Board members include:

• Michelle Avary, Vice President, Automotive Product and Strategy, Aeris

Michelle Avary is responsible for the overall management of Aeris’ automotive strategy, product planning and business development. A 17-year veteran of automotive telematics, Avary previously led Toyota Motor Sales' telematics strategies. Most recently she was the Director of Technology Strategy for Harman International where she led the development of technology strategies for all of Harman’s business lines.

• Bryan Biniak, EIR, Nokia Growth Partners

Bryan Biniak is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at Nokia Growth Partners which recently launched a $100 million Connected Car Fund. Previously, he was the General Manager of developer experiences at Microsoft where he was responsible for driving innovation with the company’s global developer community and growth of the broader ecosystem across Microsoft’s technologies, products and services portfolio including Windows, Mobile Devices, Xbox, IoT and Azure. Prior to Microsoft, Biniak was Global Vice President and General Manager at Nokia.

• John Ellis, Founder & Managing Director, Ellis and Associates

John Ellis is a software developer and business development veteran with over 25 years of experience. Formerly the Global Technologist for Ford’s connected car business unit as well as an executive with Motorola, he has delivered award-winning products and programs including opensource.motorola.com, developer.motorola.com, SmartDeviceLink, MyFordMobile, and developer.ford.com. Ellis actively consults to clients on the space where automotive, consumer, connectivity and software all intersect as well as serves as the lead instructor for the Connected Vehicle Professional certificate course managed by the Society of Automotive Engineers, Connected Vehicle Trade Association and Mobile Comply.

• Roger C. Lanctot, Associate Director, Global Automotive Practice, Strategy Analytics

Roger Lanctot brings more than 25 years of experience in electronics industry market research, consulting and journalism to the board. Lanctot advises clients on in-vehicle safety, infotainment and connectivity systems anticipating market, regulatory, and technological developments in hardware, software and business models.

• Peter Marx, Chief Technology Officer, City of Los Angeles

Peter Marx oversees the implementation of new tools and technologies across L.A. city government to better solve problems for residents and make City Hall work more efficiently and effectively. In addition, he partners with L.A.'s growing tech industry to deploy innovative technology and promote local job creation. Before joining the Mayor's Office, Marx served as the Vice President of Business Development at Qualcomm Labs, Inc. and was the Vice President of the Technology and Digital Studio at Mattel, Inc.

• Chris McKillop, Manager, Android Platform, Google

Chris McKillop leads an engineering team responsible for living room and entertainment products within Google’s Android organization. He was previously Vice President of Software at Jawbone; Sr. Director, webOS Linux at Palm; Team Lead, iOS WiFi & Bluetooth at Apple and a Software Engineer at QNX Software Systems.

• Manuela Papadopol, Director, Global Marketing, Elektrobit

Manuela Papadopol is responsible for the overall development and execution of global marketing strategy for Elektrobit. She also holds a patent in voice-activated acquisition of non-local content. Prior to joining Elektrobit, Papadopol served as a global marketing manager for automotive programs at Microsoft and as global marketing manager at the Tweddle Group. She began her business career in public relations and marketing at BMW in 1996, moving to Mercedes Benz as a public relations manager in 2000. Fluent in German, Spanish, English and Romanian, she holds a degree in communications from the Romanian-American University in Bucharest and a post-graduate degree in public relations from the University of Washington.

• Danny Shapiro, Senior Director of Automotive, NVIDIA

Danny Shapiro is the Senior Director of NVIDIA’s automotive business unit focused on developing autonomous vehicle hardware and software platforms that integrate computer vision, deep learning and sensor fusion. He is a 25-year veteran of Silicon Valley tech firms, having served in marketing, business development and engineering roles.

• Geoff Snyder, Vice President of Business Development, Automotive and Connected Devices, Pandora

Geoff Snyder is focused on the extension of Pandora into vehicles and connected devices. As consumers demand better music experiences at home and in the car, he is focused on developing relationships with representatives of the world’s top automotive and consumer electronics brands, working as a liaison between engineering and business teams to make personalized radio widely available on-the-road and in the home.

• CCE Conference Director: Andy Gryc, Co-founder, CX3 Marketing

Andy Gryc is a well-known automotive technology evangelist whose reputation in the industry is rooted in his hands-on experience in the automotive and embedded trenches – software architecture and engineering, technical sales and product marketing – for well over two decades at companies like QNX, OnStar and HP. Through CX3 Marketing, he lends his industry knowledge, technology insights and marketing expertise to analysts, journalists and companies throughout the automotive industry.

The LA Auto Show and CCE will announce more details, including session and discussion topics and industry expert participants over the coming months. For more information, please visit http://www.connectedcarexpo.com and http://www.laautoshow.com/.

May 10, 2016  - GPS World -- Recent progress with Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) brings connected cars or V2X — connectivity between vehicles, infrastructure and all road users — closer to reality than ever before. If all goes well, an NHTSA mandate on DSRC in new light vehicles is expected to start around 2020 as a phase-in plan, with completion around 2025.

Regulations for aftermarket devices are expected to come soon after. The mandate is expected to leave auto OEMs to choose the applications and human-machine interface (HMI). This will be the culmination of more than a decade of technology development and standardization by U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), automotive OEMs and other industry partners.

Significance of V2X. According to USDOT, V2X technology can positively impact more than 80% of non-impaired vehicle crash types that result in over 30,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. A report by the Federal Highway Administration to Congress states that V2X technology is ready to be deployed in the near future and is expected to yield significant safety and efficiency benefits.

From a consumer’s perspective, V2X will be a part of a vehicle ADAS (Active Safety Driver Assistance System). Initial systems will provide information only, and these systems are expected to evolve into warning and control capabilities. In a future vehicle, information from multiple sensors including V2X will be combined/fused to generate a view of the surrounding environment. Figure 1 gives an example of such sensors including long- and short-range radar, lidar, cameras and V2X. V2X offers unique advantages over other sensors that depend on direct line-of-sight. Information can be received from vehicles not visible to other sensors, giving a much larger field of view. V2X can transmit information directly from traffic control devices, instead of inferring information from camera observations.

Read the rest here: http://gpsworld.com/connected-vehicles-road-ready-yet/

New Electronics -- Imagine you’re driving down the highway with the music blaring, enjoying the open road. Now imagine that the sound from your rear speaker system is delayed by a split second from the front; your enjoyment of the fancy in-car infotainment system comes to a screeching halt.

Ethernet is emerging as the network of choice for infotainment and advanced driver assistance systems that include cameras, telematics, rear-seat entertainment systems and mobile phones. A typical system is shown in fig 1. But standard Ethernet protocols can’t assure timely and continuous audio/video (A/V) content delivery for bandwidth intensive and latency sensitive applications without buffering, jitter, lags or other performance hits.

Audio-Video Bridging (AVB) over Ethernet is a collection of extensions to the IEEE802.1 specifications that enables local Ethernet networks to stream time synchronised, loss sensitive A/V data. Within an Ethernet network, the AVB extensions help differentiate AVB traffic from the non-AVB traffic that can also flow through the network. This is done using an industry standard approach that allows for plug and play communication between systems from multiple vendors.

The extensions that define the AVB standard achieve this by:

* reserving bandwidth for AVB data transfers to avoid packet loss due to network congestion from ‘talker’ to ‘listener(s)’

* establishing queuing and forwarding rules for AVB packets that keep packets from bunching and guarantee delivery of packets with a bounded latency from talker to listener(s) via intermediate switches, if needed

* synchronising time to a global clock so the time bases of all network nodes are aligned precisely to a common network master clock, and

* creating time aware packets which include a ‘presentation time’ that specifies when A/V data inside a packet has to be played.

Designers of automotive A/V systems need to understand the AVB extensions and requirements and how their chosen microcontroller will support that functionality.

AVB: a basket of standards

AVB requires that three extensions be met in order to comply with IEEE802.1:

* IEEE802.1AS – timing and synchronisation for time-sensitive applications (gPTP)

* IEEE802.1Qat – stream reservation protocol (SRP)

* IEEE802.1Qav – forwarding and queuing for time-sensitive streams (FQTSS).

In order to play music or video from one source – such as a car’s head unit – to multiple destinations, such as backseat monitors, amplifiers and speakers, the system needs a common understanding of time in order to avoid lags or mismatch in sound or video. IEEE802.1AS-2011 specifies how to establish and maintain a single time reference – a synchronised ‘wall clock’ – for all nodes in a local network. The generalised precision time protocol (gPTP), based on IEEE1588, is used to synchronise and syntonise all network nodes to sub-microsecond accuracy. Nodes are synchronised if their clocks show the same time and are syntonised if their clocks increase at the same rate.

- See more at: http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-technology/how-ethernet-avb-is-playing-a-central-role-in-automotive-streaming-applications/108329/#sthash.KGiYCn1h.dpuf

9-19-2016, C3 Report -- While attending the Further with Ford conference at the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, earlier this week, the automaker’s old-fashioned script logo at the entrance to the building caught my eye. Probably because I’d watched several episodes of HBO’s Silicon Valley on the plane ride to Detroit; its opening title sequence features tech company logos vying for attention. At Ford, its old-school insignia seemed out of step with its ambitions to remake itself as a mobility company rivaling the likes of Uber, Google, and others.

Technology has certainly created Kodak moments for many long-established and iconic companies, and some predict the same thing will occur in the auto industry. While Ford isn’t the only car company making this transition into mobility, it has been one of the most aggressive. It plans, for example, to build and deploy fully self-driving vehicles for an autonomous ride-sharing service in five years; check out a hands on with Ford’s latest self-driving car from our sister site ExtremeTech. Last week, it also acquired van-pool service Chariot and announced plans to expand bike-sharing in the Bay Area.

The Further with Ford event featured a parade of company executives in a carefully choreographed series of discussions and presentations. But at the same time, I found the company’s kingpins, and particularly executive chairman and company scion Bill Ford, unusually candid about the opportunities and challenges the automaker faces in moving from selling vehicles to marketing mobility.

In an opening session, CEO Mark Fields suggested that vehicle miles traveled will be more important than number of vehicle sold. Product chief Raj Nair noted that Ford is intentionally disrupting its century-old business model of vehicle sales since the change is inevitable.

But few things provoke a stronger reaction from auto industry veterans than the idea that car companies are dinosaurs that will be eventually usurped by Silicon Valley. In an onstage interview, Bill Ford, the great-grandson of the company’s founder, acknowledged that “it’s not just Google and Apple, but it’s start-ups of people spinning out of Google and Apple” with which Ford will have to compete.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

June 30, 2016, CThreeReport -- The fourth-annual C3 Connected Mobility Conference at CE Week drew a record crowd on June 22 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan. “As this space evolves and expands, we’re seeing entirely new segments of attendees,” said Doug Newcomb, President and Co-founder of the C3 Group. “This year’s C3 Connected Mobility Conference attracted attendees from not only automotive and media, but also included a strong showing from the financial industry, academia, policymakers and social media influencers.

The fourth-annual C3 Connected Mobility Conference kicked off with a presentation by Akshay Anand, Manager of Commercial Insights for Kelley Blue Book, highlighting research the company conducted on ride-sharing and car-sharing on the auto industry, showing how these two new forms of mobility are “not an immediate threat to car buying.”

This dovetailed with the topic of the first panel, How Car-Sharing and Ride-Sharing Are Reshaping the Auto Industry, which featured Anand, Steve Banfield, CEO of BMW ReachNow, and Michael Mikos, CFO and Director of Business Development for Daimler’s Car2Go, and moderated by C3’s Doug Newcomb.  Panelists from BMW and Daimler stressed the value of trusted brands as consumers gain acceptance of the new technology and explore how to adopt car-sharing and ride-sharing into their mobility choices.

The second panel explored the Financial and Societal Impact of Self-Driving Cars, and featured Peter Esser, General Representative of Washington Operations for NXP Semiconductors, Bryan Reimer, Associate Director of the New England Transportation Center and a Research Scientist at MIT’s AgeLab, and Tushar Sethi, a Director at Quid, with Catherine McCullough, Director of Intelligent Car Coalition, serving as moderator. Topics include the liability and ethics implications of self-driving technology.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

12-12-2016, Slash Gear -- There are eighty-six seconds before the traffic lights are due to turn from red to green, plenty of time to pull my phone out of my pocket and check Twitter. Fifty-four seconds, and I channel surf on the radio, ignoring the flashing lights and eager billboards of the Las Vegas strip around me. Fifteen seconds, just enough time for a quick gulp of water, and then my hands are ready on the wheel, foot poised on the gas, ready to pull away.

It’s a mighty relaxing way to deal with traffic, and though the shiny new Audi I’m driving doesn’t exactly hurt when it comes to cosseting, it’s the groundbreaking technology baked into this connected car that can really take the credit. Freshly powered-up in Las Vegas, NV, Audi’s Traffic Light Information (TFI) is one of the very first steps down the road of Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I). Cars that hold entire conversations with the cities they’re driven in, an encrypted back-channel intended to keep the roads flowing and your blood pressure down.

This isn’t the first time traffic light information has been served up to drivers, but it’s probably the most high-tech. Some countries have timers mounted on the signals themselves; a handful of cities have experimented with (and abandoned) short-range, radio-based systems, the individual lights communicating with compatible cars nearby. There are lifehack-style workarounds, of course, like watching the countdown on pedestrian crossings in the US to figure out when the lights are likely to switch.

Read the rest of the stoyr HERE.

JPost -- Japanese motor company, Honda, made its formal entrance in Israel's tech market, seeking local technology for connected cars at the OurCrowd annual summit.

“Our presence at this conference is actually Honda’s first formal entrance to Israel’s technology community. Having come here from silicon valley, I can tell you that I’m very impressed with the innovative and entrepreneurial culture and spirit of the start-up nation,” said Nick Sugimoto, the Senior Program Director of Honda's Silicon Valley Lab.

Honda, he said, was searching for Israeli technology to develop smart car apps through its Honda Developer Studio, and others to participate in its accelerator program called Honda XCelerator. The eventual goal, he added, was to eventually make Honda vehicles completely collision free.

OurCrowd, an equity crowd-funding platform, presented several companies working in the connected car space. VocalZoom, for example, offers a voice recognition system that uses lasers to detect vocal vibration and separate words out from background noise. The company expects the technology to be available in cars by 2018, which will help drivers keep their eyes on the road while dealing with their car's various functions.

Read the rest here: http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Tech/Honda-comes-to-Israel-for-connected-car-tech-442694

U.S. drivers can find, route to, reserve and pay for parking at lots, garages and meters directly from the dasboard

Nashville, TN – May 18, 2016 –INRIX, Inc., a leading provider of dynamic connected car services worldwide, and Parkmobile, the leading provider of on-demand and prepaid mobile payments for on- and off- street parking and mobility solutions, announced a strategic partnership at the annual International Parking Institute (IPI) conference to jointly develop an embedded, end-to-end parking solution for the auto industry. The partnership will bring together availability, reservations and payments for both on-street and off-street parking into a seamless in-car navigation experience.

“The ecosystem of mobile and parking solutions is complex and fragmented. To date, the industry has not consolidated all the services, capabilities and parking inventory into a single solution. Through our coordinated development efforts with INRIX, we will deliver a holistic parking solution the auto industry can deploy quickly and efficiently into the connected car. We strongly believe our partnership with INRIX will contribute to realizing Parkmobile’s vision of improving the quality of people’s lives through convenience, efficiency and immediacy,” said Jon Ziglar, CEO of Parkmobile.

Atlanta-based Parkmobile is the largest provider of mobile payments for on- and off-street parking and mobility-related services for municipalities, universities, commercial operators and transit facilities in the U.S. Parkmobile’s solutions are available in 35 of the top 100 U.S. cities, including Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Indianapolis and Houston. More than four million people use Parkmobile’s services over 27 million times per year, making it the most widely used mobile parking solution in the country.

“An end-to-end parking solution is a game changer for the auto industry, and Parkmobile is a key component in ensuring INRIX is the go-to-market provider,” said Alex Israel, Vice President and General Manager – Parking at INRIX. “The entire industry – from automakers to parking suppliers to drivers – will benefit from INRIX’s extensive ecosystem of parking services.”

INRIX launched the industry’s first dynamic off-street parking service in 2013, followed by the first integrated on-street parking solution in June 2015. In August 2015, INRIX acquired ParkMe, a leader in parking location, availability and reservations worldwide. The company was recently recognized by SBD for its comprehensive and accurate parking data in the U.S. and Europe. INRIX Parking currently includes street-level parking information in over 40 cities worldwide, and an off-street parking database with more than 29 million spaces in over 90,000 locations spanning 4,000 cities in 65 countries. INRIX is the preferred provider of parking information and services to leading automakers, including Audi, BMW, Lexus and Porsche, as well as transportation agencies and drivers around the world.

Parks Associates forecasts US will have 169 million actively connected cars by 2022

North Andover, MA, April 29, 2019 – InstallerNet recently announced it will partner with Parks Associates to present the Connected Car Corner at their upcoming CONNECTIONS™ conference taking place May 21-23 in San Francisco, CA. The exhibit will highlight the role of smart automotive and mobile solutions in the smart home ecosystem.

New connected car research from Parks Associates reveals 4% of US broadband households have an in-car voice assistant device, such as the Amazon Echo Auto, Roav Viva, or Muse Auto, and 9% plan to buy one in the next 12 months. The research firm estimates the US will have 169 million actively connected cars, 56% of all light vehicles, by 2022.

“We are thrilled to partner with InstallerNet, a leader in both connected car and home services, to launch the first Connected Car Corner at CONNECTIONS™, highlighting the growing importance of the connected car in the smart home ecosystem,” said Elizabeth Parks, President, Parks Associates. “The market is early but emerging, with several mobile solutions companies discovering how best to treat the automobile like another room in the home. Nearly 10% of US broadband households are planning to buy an in-car voice assistant device and add new features for connected cars offering innovative safety, comfort, and infotainment services.”

The CONNECTIONS™ Showcase Area highlights the latest innovations from leading IoT and smart home companies, and the Connected Car Corner, by InstallerNet, will host companies with specific solutions and technologies for the connected car.
“InstallerNet has been integrating innovative electronics in the automobile since 2006, helping device manufacturers design, test, and install their vehicle solutions nationwide. The connected car continues to disrupt several industries with enhanced business models and will play a significant role in autonomous driving,” said Tony Frangiosa, CEO, InstallerNet. “We are excited about working with CONNECTIONS™ to showcase some of these leading technology companies.”

CONNECTIONS™ also features the special session “Connected Cars: Extension for the Smart Home,” which will provide insight on new revenue streams and business models emerging out of the connected car, the impact on auto insurance, and best marketing strategies to capture consumer interest. The session features executives from Gentex Corporation, Mojio, NXP, Owl Cameras, and SoundHound.

The event will host more than 650 high-level executives in an intimate networking environment. CONNECTIONS™ includes a mix of market research, analysis, and industry insight designed to capture the complexity and opportunities in these interconnected markets.
Connected Car Corner, by InstallerNet, will feature companies with specific solutions and technology for the connected car. If your company is interested in participating in the Connected Car Corner, please contact Bill Ali at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 978-645-6435.

About CONNECTIONS™
Parks Associates' 23nd-annual CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference will take place May 21-23, 2019, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport in San Francisco. CONNECTIONS™ is the premier connected home event hosting more than 600 executives from the connected entertainment, IoT, and smart home industries. CONNECTIONS™ provides networking opportunities combined with two days of visionary keynotes and conference sessions focused on technology adoption and trends, product and service forecasts, evaluation of new business strategies, and recommendations for strategic partnerships, monetization opportunities, and value-added service design. The event also features a research workshop highlighting Parks Associates’ smart home insight consumer data.

About InstallerNet InstallerNet is an installation solutions provider for the consumer electronics industry delivering content, technology, services, and logistics to CE retailers, manufacturers and installers. The company specializes in merchandising and coordinating consumer electronics installation services through the nation’s largest network of independently owned home and mobile electronics installers. It has developed a unique approach to better merchandise services through its branded InstallCard, that allows retailers to sell professional services like a gift card. Visit us at InstallerNet.com.

The organizers of the Los Angeles Auto Show (LA Auto Show®) and Connected Car Expo announced today that 50 vehicle debuts, important business announcements and technological breakthroughs, shaping the future of the industry, highlight this year’s Press & Trade Days. An anticipated 20,000 auto and tech industry leaders, including more than 4,500 media from 60 countries, will gather in Los Angeles Nov 17, 18 & 19.

This year, breaking news will come not only from the auto manufacturers but from automotive technology companies as the two industries continue to collaborate and converge.

A few of the Show’s many global vehicle premieres include Buick’s redesigned LaCrosse, Land Rover’s all-new Range Rover Evoque Convertible and the new 2016 Nissan Sentra. In addition, Mitsubishi Motors will unveil the 2016 Outlander Sport with the company’s new Dynamic Shield design language, as well as the newly designed 2017 Mirage. Porsche will globally introduce the Cayman GT4 Clubsport racecar, designed for multiple racing series in North America. Not to be outdone, Scion will introduce a concept car which shows the company’s design direction for a new iconic vehicle.

Other vehicle debuts include Infiniti’s QX30 crossover, Hyundai’s Elantra, Kia’s next generation Sportage and Jaguar’s first performance SUV, the F-PACE. Elio Motors, Fiat, Ford Motor Company, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volvo and Volkswagen are keeping their debut plans under wraps until closer to the show. Automakers presenting North American reveals include Alfa Romeo, Audi, BMW and MINI.

This year’s vehicle debuts will deliver production and concept vehicles representing the ever-growing luxury, performance, low and zero emission categories. They range from flagship SUVs and ultra-luxury sedans to new compact entries and zero-emission production and prototypes.

Beyond the auto debuts, several companies will make important announcements about alternative fuel strategies, technology partnerships, new product releases and breakthrough technologies that begin to frame the future of the auto industry. To date, companies that have announced their intentions to make technology news include Volvo, Hyundai, Quanergy Systems, OpenCar and KPMG, to name a few.

“This year’s news comes from many sources and it’s fascinating to witness the dramatic and swift changes transforming the automotive business,” said LA Auto Show President, Lisa Kaz. “With all the new opportunities arising so rapidly in the automotive industry, we expect this year’s event to be the most exciting yet.”

For the third consecutive year, the LA Auto Show’s Connected Car Expo (CCE) will kick-off Press & Trade Days on November 17. This opening day will be dedicated to the convergence of technology and the automobile and will occupy virtually the entire JW Marriott at the adjacent L.A. Live entertainment complex. The Connected Car Expo features over 40 exhibitors and sponsors, an entire day of presentations, news announcements and networking opportunities.

The two remaining Press & Trade days will continue at the Los Angeles Convention Center (November 18 & 19) with the support of major sponsors Autotrader, Pirelli and State Farm.

Registration for the Show is now open. CCE exhibitors and attendees with a three-day pass will be able to witness this year’s vehicle reveals and have access to an all-new CCE networking destination at the convention center.

For more information visit www.ConnectedCarExpo.com and www.LAAutoShow.com.

Automotive News -- Nissan is working to leverage its early lead in electric vehicles for bigger strides in autonomy and connectivity. Richard Candler, Nissan Europe's head of advanced product planning, provided details in an interview with Automotive News Europe Correspondent Olive Keogh.

Q: What is your definition of the fully connected car?

A: Autonomous, connected, electric. They just work so well together.

How soon will that happen?

We are launching a system next year that can manage traffic jams on the motorway, for example. By 2020, we will have cars that can basically drive themselves in every situation.

What's the most expensive part of connected-car solutions?

It depends on the implementation. We have the smartphone solution that is relatively inexpensive and the more expensive black-box solution. As the technology becomes more mainstream and costs reduce, we will start to see embedded solutions or a combination of embedded and smartphone systems becoming more common.

How advanced is Nissan's rollout of connected-car services?

We already have full connectivity on all of our EVs. This includes services such as a charging points download that tells customers where charging points are. We have a smartphone integration system on our other cars with access to services such as Google search and TripAdvisor. 

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.autonews.com/article/20160208/OEM06/302089985/nissan-plans-big-strides-in-connectivity

2/22/2016, NY Times -- On the 36th floor of a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, the actors Ice Cube and Kevin Hart joshed with fans inside a glass-walled radio studio one afternoon last month. They were in the broadcast headquarters of SiriusXM, and across the lobby, near Howard Stern’s dedicated wing, Brooke Shields posed for selfies with three “Sesame Street” puppets, while Senator Rand Paul — at that point, still a candidate for president — hovered with a small entourage. Overhead, a screen announced the imminent arrival of the thrash-metal band Anthrax.

By any measure, it was an odd cross section of pop culture. Surveying the scene, Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s chief content officer, smiled and declared, “This is how I like it — just this diverse.”

At SiriusXM, the satellite-radio network, executives use terms like “mosaic,” “bundle” and, inevitably, “curated” to describe the company’s mix of programming. With more than 175 channels, SiriusXM has much more variety than typical AM/FM radio but a small fraction of the ads. It has channels dedicated to the Grateful Dead and the Metropolitan Opera; five feeds of thumping electronic dance music; every pro baseball, football and basketball game; and, of course, Mr. Stern’s blend of raunchy humor and celebrity interviews. Around the Super Bowl, it had 162 hours of live programming related to the game that ran across 22 shows on 10 channels.

Once flirting with bankruptcy, SiriusXM has quietly become a financial powerhouse at a time when other radio and digital music outlets are struggling to make a profit, and also as the behavior of so-called cord cutters — who cancel their cable TV subscriptions to pick and choose their entertainment online (and to save money) — has made Wall Street nervous about the future of bundled media. SiriusXM last year earned $510 million on $4.6 billion in revenue, and renewed major deals with Mr. Stern and the National Football League.

“This has been a remarkable success story against huge odds,” said Barton Crockett, a media analyst with FBR Capital Markets. “Most of the investing public thought there was no way this would work, spending huge amounts of capital to launch satellites and put equipment in cars. But they were right. This is a great business.”

SiriusXM has hit on the formula for getting people — nearly 30 million of them — to pay for radio, a form of media that has always been free. But while the company likes to emphasize the awesomeness of its audio “mosaics,” there is another, more mundane, explanation for its success: cars.

SiriusXM pays about $1 billion a year in subsidies and revenue splits to automakers, and according to the company, 75 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States come with satellite radio installed. (It works with every major carmaker.) Of the 29.6 million subscribers to SiriusXM at the end of last year, 24.2 million paid the $11 to $20 monthly fee themselves, with the rest covered through promotions by car companies.

Yet cars are changing in ways that could threaten SiriusXM’s position. New technologies, loosely referred to as the connected car, are bringing the Internet to the dashboard. For drivers, that means that various new audio apps — many of them free — will soon be available at a touch. For SiriusXM, that means a lot of new competition in the car, the place where consumers listen to radio the most. This process has already begun, with Apple and Google pushing for their own car media platforms, and Mr. Meyer said that he expected the technology to be in most new cars by the end of this decade. Will listeners still fork over $15 for SiriusXM if they can just as easily tune in to Spotify, Pandora or Beats 1 from Apple?

“The major enemy of SiriusXM these days is Internet radio,” said Jack Nerad, executive editorial director of Kelley Blue Book. “It’s important for Sirius to be in automobiles, but I think that for the car companies, it’s going to be just another programming source.”

Mr. Meyer, who spent years managing the company’s relationships with Detroit before he became chief executive in 2012, has been hearing this refrain for a long time. But he said that SiriusXM was well positioned for the change, with plans for a new, more interactive version of its radio system, code-named SXM17, and the advantage of knowing that car companies make changes to their machines very slowly. “Even when you’re Apple,” Mr. Meyer said, “they will still live with the speed carmakers want to go.”

Phil Abram, the chief infotainment officer of General Motors, said that Pandora, as well as platforms like Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto, have had no significant effect on how many of its customers subscribe to SiriusXM.

“People like to have a plethora of content,” Mr. Abram said. “One day you might want to listen to music on your iPhone, the next day talk radio, and the next day you want a curated set of music from a company like SiriusXM. We want to try to make it as easy as possible for our customers to enjoy whichever they want.”

Satellite radio’s fortunes have not always been so rosy. After years of planning and investment in the 1990s, the new medium began broadcasting in the early 2000s from two companies, Sirius and XM. For years both lost money as they competed to build their programming slates and sign multimillion-dollar deals with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart.

The biggest catch, by far, was Mr. Stern, who signed a five-year, $500 million deal with Sirius to begin broadcasting at the start of 2006. His arrival instantly put satellite radio on the map. Sirius and XM merged in 2008 — during the recession, when car sales were plummeting. After nearly going bankrupt under the weight of its debt, the combined SiriusXM was saved by a last-minute infusion of capital from Liberty Media, the cable and entertainment empire controlled by John C. Malone, which in early 2009 lent $530 million in exchange for preferred shares convertible into 40 percent of the common stock of the company.

Gregory B. Maffei, Liberty’s chief executive and the chairman of SiriusXM, recalled that at the time of the deal, a colleague told him, “Either the world ends, or we’re going to make a lot of money.” They made a lot of money. SiriusXM repaid the loans in five months, and the roughly 62 percent stake that Liberty now has in the company — which is formally known as Sirius XM Holdings — is worth about $11 billion.

SiriusXM’s strategy for competing with free radio has been to give people a lot of the radio they like — music, sports, talk, news — and minimize what they do not, namely commercials. That means the station’s programmers do not feel the ratings pressures that bedevil terrestrial radio.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/business/media/siriusxm-fights-to-dominate-the-dashboard-of-the-connected-car.html?_r=0

11-7-2016, Manufacturing Business Technology -- The connected car is already yesterday’s big news, being the buzzing new tech development in the automotive industry for close to a decade now. As the industry approaches mass commercialization of this technology, with manufacturers already having launched their connected car solutions, it is only logical that connected cars are billed as the next wave of disruption in the auto industry. Despite the hype, penetration of connected cars in the U.S. today is at only nine percent [Statista], but this doesn’t mean there isn’t potential.

Despite visible excitement, one of the main reasons behind low adoption is that the average car owner doesn’t see value in owning a connected car. This means the value that is expected and the actual perceived value that is delivered are not aligned. Cars are depreciating ‘assets’ and quickly lose value. That said, the added costs of insurance, routine maintenance and services such as connected infotainment, drive reports, remote functions and elementary diagnostics, are beneficial but do not add enough value to justify the extra spend. Independent market studies also indicate similar insights, highlighting a whopping 43 percent who reported ‘lack of need’ as the biggest barrier for adoption. It’s no surprise that there is a faster adoption in the commercial truck segment, where telematics bring distinct value to truck drivers and fleet owners.

An Opportunity to Create Value

Cars are unique in that they offer a more personal experience and typically have a longer ownership tenure as well.

Car owners are increasingly becoming more tech savvy and stay constantly connected. They also spend a considerable amount of time in the car, as the traffic condition is worsening day by day. According to the AAA foundation for Safety, Americans spend well over 300 hours a year on driving! 

This creates an opportunity to engage the driver/owner constantly throughout the ownership cycle, and offer personalized services to redefine the in-car experience. Automotive OEMs need to re-visualize ‘Connected Cars’ as a hub for service providers, insurers, ecosystem players and technology companies — to offer innovative solutions.

Auto OEMs make great cars and provide great services, but they have a limited and disconnected consumer ecosystem. Connected cars provide an incredible opportunity to disrupt this by opening up the potential for tremendous ecosystem play and creating additional revenue generation channels.

An integrated ecosystem can offer a plethora of value additions through a connected car, ranging from providing critical/emergency services (Faster emergency response can save around 2,500 lives per year in case of road accidents) to predictive component failure alerts and automated/proactive maintenance appointment bookings. All of these can be empowered with analytics-driven insights, allowing the owner to make more informed decisions based on component usage trends, closest available dealerships and vehicle health. Insights can shed light into the history of a car’s ownership with information such as prolonged wear and tear, usage/abuse trends, enabling the subsequent owners (auctioneers, scrap yards, independent dealerships, used car valuation services and used car inspection outlets) of the car to aptly analyze and monetize their asset.

Rethinking the Car Ecosystem

Smartphones allows any developer in the world to create an application and engage consumers with their content. Soon, technology will enable cars to do the same. Auto manufacturers only need to equip cars with a platform that will enable all authorized ecosystem players/service providers to come and consume its data. Whether it be insurance providers or the friendly ride-sharing services, application programming interfaces (APIs) could provide helpful insights to better services consumers. This essentially helps multiple ecosystem players move away from independent CapEx (capital expenditure) models into a co-share OpEx (operating expenditure) model — and the auto manufacturer always gets its share of the business in a sustainable fashion.

The connected car ecosystem also allows interesting innovations and new business models. For example, connected delivery or ‘roam’ delivery, where goods are delivered directly to one’s connected car instead of one’s home, can save time and reduce failed deliveries. The connected car also opens up possibilities for smart taxation and governance through programs such as ‘per mile road tax’, where road tax is charged by miles driven instead. Tomorrow, a consumer’s smart car and smart home can communicate with each other to provide utilitarian services using connected devices and software

Read the rest of the story HERE. 

USA Today -- Toyota announced an enhanced relationship with Microsoft on Monday aimed at delivering "connected car" services to drivers in ways they probably never could have imagined.

For instance, artificial-intelligence features could be added to cars that allow them to know where the car is going and offer services drivers might want along the way. Going to the baseball game this weekend? The car might detect the route a driver normally takes and recommend restaurants for a pre-game lunch.

Toyota Connected, as the partnership will be known, "will help free our customers from the tyranny of technology. It will make lives easier and help us to return to our humanity,” said Zack Hicks, the chief information officer of Toyota Motor North America who was appointed CEO of Toyota Connected.

Already, drivers ask the infotainment system in their cars for restaurant recommendations, but many locations often would require that a driver turn around. But with Toyota Connected, the system might be modified to only recommend restaurants on the highway ahead — and then only the kinds of food that the driver usually prefers.

The services offered can be tailored to individual customers. "We don't want to dump everything on everyone," said Sandy Lobenstein, executive vice president of Toyota Connected. "The whole is idea is getting to know our customers better."

Road information can be delivered to drivers based on driving patterns — knowing the routes they usually take. Auto insurance could be priced more accurately because the system could report on a driver's actual miles and routes traveled.

Medical-related sensors could also be built into the car, like heartbeat monitors or sensors on the steering wheel. Some of the services could be offered to customers wirelessly by being beamed directly into their cars, but Lobenstein said that customer privacy considerations will be paramount.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/04/04/toyota-connected-car-microsoft/82602066/

Fleet Owner -- The trucking industry is expected to undergo significant and continued “transformation” due to ongoing incorporation of more active safety technologies, such as collision mitigation, and factory-installed telematics systems, according to a panel discussion at the 2015 Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference last week in Dallas, Texas.

Stephen Hampson, president and GM of Meritor WABCO, and Chris Hines, executive VP for Zonar Systems, both argued that various technologies will not only continue to make the industry safer – reducing crashes and helping identify bad driving habits – but also help boost fleet profitability as well, particularly via increased vehicle uptime.

“We’re witnessing an evolution of safety systems that integrate multiple technologies such as lane departure warning (LDW), electronic stability control (ESC), telematics and data/video capture devices,” Hampson said.

“We’re also now starting to share data through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology as well,” he added. “All of that will help improve vehicle and driver performance, not only to reduce crashes but to pave the way for semi-autonomous and fully autonomous vehicles as well.”

Reducing the severity of crashes – if not eliminating them altogether – is what will help fleets achieve payback from their safety system investments, Hampson stressed.

For example, he pointed to the projected benefits from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) impending ESC mandate for tractor-trailers.

Assuming that all existing 5-axle tractor-trailers operating on U.S. roads get fitted with ESC, the expected annual safety benefit is 4,659 fewer crashes, 126 fewer fatalities, and 5,909 fewer injuries, all while saving $1.5 billion a year in crash-related expenses.

Hampson also noted that the rapid changes occurring to newer safety technologies, such as Meritor WABCO’s OnGuard collision mitigation system, should further reduce accidents.

March 9, 2016, Governing.com -- The storm that rolled through Ann Arbor, Mich., in late November brought nine inches of snow and an experimental opportunity too good to pass up. A team of Ford engineers working to develop self-driving vehicles decided it would be a good time to put their modified Ford Fusion sedans to the test.

Snow, like rain, can be especially tricky for automated vehicles. Precipitation makes it harder for driverless cars to know where they are. Their cameras can’t see lines on snow-covered pavement or in the reflections of puddles. Falling precipitation interferes with radar. Piles of snow make finding the curbs and road edges harder, even for the cars’ laser-powered mapping devices. On top of that, snow is something of a novelty for self-driving cars. Most of them have been confined to sunny locales in states like California, Nevada and Texas, where rain and snow are rarer.

So the Ford team jumped at the chance to test their vehicles in the Michigan winter. Rather than heading to Ford’s proving grounds in Dearborn, they went to Mcity, a 32-acre test track in north Ann Arbor. It’s a shared track that’s operated by the University of Michigan and used by automakers and the state transportation department to try out autonomous and connected cars. Mcity includes elements you wouldn’t expect to find on most test tracks, things like stoplights that broadcast information to vehicles, a railroad crossing, a bus stop, highway on-ramps and gantries, a small hill, gravel roads, sidewalk crossings, stop signs, a simulated tree canopy and overpass, roundabouts, vandalized traffic signs, and a mockup of downtown city blocks.