Lidar
Cabin Detection
Skateboards
Alcohol Detection
AEB
FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATIONS
Electric Brakes
Industry 4.0
Recycled Material
Video Analysis
Battery Supply Chains
Green Steel
Diaster Monitoring
C02 Awareness
Rearview Camaras
OTA Service
Local Supply Base
Part Fingerprinting
Telematic Control Units
Fingerprint Purchases
The Promise of 5G
Intersection Vision
Worker Shortages
In-House Components
Predictive Part Failure
Lane Keep
The past few years have ushered in dozens of changes in the realm of safety technology, in manufacturing practices and in connected vehicles. These are 25 of them.
Lidar no longer just for future
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FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATIONS
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Lidar has long been seen as a critical sensor for developing self-driving vehicles of the future. But the technology has become more attractive than expected and will soon make its way onto vehicles in showrooms. Automakers including Stellantis and Nissan said this year that they will roll out lidar systems on their vehicles beginning in the middle of the decade. Stellantis said the lidar system will enable Level 3 self-driving capabilities on its models, while Nissan said lidar will help to enable high-speed emergency maneuvers. While lidar still has high-profile skeptics, such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it is increasingly becoming a technology of choice for many others. Seen here are sensors on the electric successor to XC90, showing the reach of lidar safety
Cabin detection systems can monitor health, behavior
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At the same time that auto companies are developing sensors to monitor other vehicles on the road, they’re also rolling out technology to keep an eye on the state of drivers and passengers inside the vehicle. Seeing rapid proliferation are sensors that detect whether objects or people are about to be left behind in a vehicle. But that’s just the beginning. Mitsubishi Electric unveiled a system at CES this year that it said can detect if a driver is sick by monitoring the person’s pulse and expressions. If it detects signs of a health emergency, the system can pull the vehicle over to the shoulder. Gentex said it has also developed a system that can assess driver and passenger behavior and gestures to “enhance driving safety.”
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Cabin detection systems can monitor health, behavior
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Not so long ago, the vehicles of the world were neatly divided into two architectures: unibody platforms that yielded smooth-riding cars and body-on-frame trucks that are more rugged and simpler to construct. But in the past few years, a third kind of platform has swept the industry: skateboards. A skateboard is a rolling chassis consisting of an essentially flat platform made up of an electric vehicle’s battery, its electronics and removable corners that contain suspension, braking and steering systems. The benefit? The same skateboard can be shared by multiple automakers designing their own brand-unique “top hat” models of different sizes — cars, crossovers or even pickups. For example, Volkswagen will share its electric MEB skateboard chassis, above, with Ford Motor Co. Development costs can be spread among models, allowing manufacturers to get up and running faster or move quickly into new segments. Though not without its doubters, the skateboard concept is being pursued by automakers and major chassis suppliers, including Bosch, Benteler, Schaeffler, ZF, electronics giant Foxconn and Israeli startup REE.
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The new other way to design vehicles
Buried inside the federal government’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed last year is a provision that requires U.S. regulators to mandate the adoption of vehicle technology that will prevent drunk drivers from starting their vehicles, beginning as early as 2026. It is a dramatic change for the industry, which has long decried the 10,000 annual deaths caused by drunken driving but done little about it. The question for automakers is no longer “What can be done?” The question is now “Where can we source the technology to meet the requirements?” Automakers flirted with the idea over the past two decades, but electronics were not as evolved as they now are. Emerging technologies include in-vehicle breathalyzers, cabin-based health-monitoring systems that can measure driver biometrics and new-era scanners capable of reading the iris of a driver’s eye to flag intoxication. The economic motive for the change is clear: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that driving under the influence resulted in more than $200 billion in what it calls “comprehensive societal costs” in the U.S. last year.
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No more procrastinating on drunken driving prevention
No more procrastinating on drunken driving prevention
Automatic emergency braking, which first appeared on luxury cars more than a decade ago, proved so effective that it is now installed on nearly every new vehicle sold. The systems rely on radars mounted within the front grille, bumper or air vents, or cameras inside the windshield behind the rearview mirror area, and determine when a possible collision is imminent. When the software calculates that specific parameters have been met, the vehicle responds by automatically activating the brakes, or by decelerating the vehicle prior to impact. The rapid adoption of the technology came through a 2016 agreement between 20 vehicle manufacturers and NHTSA and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in which the OEMs said they would deploy it on at least 95 percent of their light-duty vehicles by Sept. 1, 2022. But the Infrastructure bill signed into law by Congress last year will make the braking systems mandatory.
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Automatic emergency braking caught on fast
Automatic emergency braking caught on fast
Automatic emergency braking caught
on fast
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Traditional hydraulic brake systems appear to be on the way out. Over the past several years, electric brake-by-wire systems have become more commonplace as electric vehicles and hybrids take hold in the marketplace. The systems, which send electric signals to the brakes to get the vehicle to slow down or stop, are ideal for automakers looking to utilize regenerative braking in their EVs. But further innovations are on the horizon. Brake supplier Brembo plans to roll out an active-braking system called Sensify in 2024 that it says can operate independently on each of the vehicle’s four wheels.
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Automatic emergency braking caught
on fast
Oh, the things we can learn from smarter factories
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Automakers have been buzzing over the concept of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things for the past several years, hailing it as the next revolution in manufacturing. But the change taking place isn’t merely about installing tools that talk to each other and automation that can collect and analyze data to help production managers make better decisions. It’s about a new vision for a connected industry. The smarter factories now being wired up will benefit schedulers at faraway trucking companies. They will enable car dealers to know when a customer’s new green crossover will be assembled and shipped to their showroom. Cloud-based networks can track the movement of long supply chains, keeping upstream commodity makers aware of consumer trends and allowing captive finance companies to forecast and plan more precisely. The shift faces hurdles, including whether small suppliers truly are ready to be transparent, and how quickly companies can invest in the new technologies. But the wheels are in motion to connect industry players everywhere.
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The circular car has nearly arrived
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The auto industry has dabbled in recycled materials in the past. A decade ago, Henrik Fisker’s Karma used wood trim made from white oak salvaged from the bottom of Lake Michigan, but the vehicle’s launch was unsuccessful. Early applications of reused materials tended to be more of a branding message. Today, the situation has changed. Recycled materials are now critical ingredients in auto composition as vehicle producers and suppliers attempt to reduce their environmental footprint. Tubing supplier Cooper Standard Automotive is working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to make its proprietary elastomer Fortrex out of recycled plastic materials, including old laundry detergent containers, discarded water bottles, grocery bags and other landfill trash. BMW last year unveiled its i Vision Circular concept, shown below in a rendering, a vehicle it says it can make using only recycled materials. BMW also declared that it has adopted a new sourcing policy called Secondary First — suppliers will be expected to show their use of recycled material before resorting to new. The new buzzword is “the circular car” — churning old materials into clean new ones.
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New eyes are searching for improvements
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Toyota’s plan to install cameras up and down its North American assembly lines might seem a bit Big Brotherly. But Toyota’s project is more akin to coaching — like reviewing film of a game to improve blocking and tackling. But the plan demonstrates how visualization tools can now be used to increase factory efficiency. Toyota’s cameras are part of an artificial intelligence system developed by Invisible AI of Austin, Texas, that will gather and analyze human motions throughout a factory to spot opportunities for better training. Where can an employee learn to lift an object more ergonomically? Is a particular line task engineered wrong? Where do line-side parts require too much walking? The system also can spot quality glitches as they happen, such as alerting a line worker that an electrical connection wasn’t made properly.
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EV battery demand ignites a whole new sector
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North America is dotted with engine plants, transmission factories and untold numbers of powertrain parts operations that send pistons, throttles, timing belts, fuel lines, radiators and mufflers through the supply chain. But now comes the electric vehicle battery supply chain. Each EV to hit the market must have a battery to power it, along with associated parts such as electric power control units and electric motors. So major electronics companies, including South Korea’s LG Energy and SK On, and Japan’s Panasonic and Envision AESC, are scurrying to invest billions of dollars to get battery plants up and running where none existed before. The result is a new auto industry landscape that will employ thousands of workers at megasites in Michigan, Ontario, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Kansas, Texas, Nevada and Arizona. Each one serves specific vehicle programs across the continent, with many more to come. Shown: SK’s new battery plant in Commerce, Ga., will supply Ford and Volkswagen.
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The industry discovered a cleaner steel
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Automakers are looking for lighter-weight alternatives to traditional steel. But as manufacturers push for carbon neutrality, they also want cleaner ways to produce their metals. The steel industry is among the three biggest producers of carbon dioxide, due to the iron ore-based production process that uses blast furnaces dependent on coking coal. But Sweden has just developed a major change in how steel can be made. Steelmaker SSAB, iron ore producer LKAB and energy company Vattenfall have devised a “green steel” that will take some of the environmental bite out of steel by replacing its coking coal with hydrogen. The promised result: Instead of carbon, the process emits water. Volvo Group signaled its commitment to the potential game changer last year by unveiling a vehicle made of SSAB green steel for mining and quarry applications — and promised more green steel vehicles to follow. Volvo’s first vehicle built with green steel, for use in mining and quarry work, is shown.
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On the lookout for calamities everywhere
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As long as there are earthquakes and sinking cargo ships somewhere in the world, there will be an automotive supply chain in jeopardy. But advances in global information-gathering are allowing third-party firms to zoom in on faraway disasters in real time to determine how they might affect shipments of any part or material at the Tier 2 or 3 level. It requires watching a vast network of public information in multiple languages. One such firm, California-based Resilinc, monitors millions of news and social feeds globally in about 100 languages for evidence of disruptive events so it can alert clients when trouble might be brewing. The spectrum of unfortunate events is endless, including work-halting factory fires, ice storms that stymie commercial truck movement, labor disputes, social unrest and jammed-up port traffic — not to mention fresh outbreaks of COVID-19 and war in Eastern Europe. What can logistics managers do with the advanced alerts? That’s on them. Shown is a Resilinc technician monitoring global events for signs of trouble.
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No more dodging CO2 worries
Some Americans watched with a sense of “thank heavens that’s not us” in recent years as environmentalists in Europe clamored for regulations to reduce carbon emissions. The Trump administration shrugged off concerns about planetary CO2 levels. But the situation has changed. The auto sector is now engaged in redesigning components and vehicles that will reduce companies’ carbon footprints. The quest for carbon neutrality includes the industrywide transition to battery-powered EVs to replace gasoline-burning engines, the development of recycled materials to make interiors and other parts, a search for ways to shorten supply chain transportation, and even the development of renewable energy to power factories. In July, Japanese supplier Denso announced it will begin using solar energy at its production complex in Maryville, Tenn., coming from four solar power plants being developed in partnership with the Maryville Electric Department, Tennessee Valley Authority and Silicon Ranch Corp. of Nashville. Shown is a solar ranch like the power sources that will supply Denso’s Tennessee factories.
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Why drivers no longer have to crane their necks
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Backup cameras were far from a new idea when they began appearing as standard equipment over the past several years. General Motors’ 1956 Buick Centurion concept, at right, proposed a rearview camera — but in those pre-sensor, low-resolution days, it consisted of a rear-mounted TV camera that flickered onto a dash-mounted TV screen. Today, the concept has been a phenomenon of technology uptake. When a vehicle shifts into reverse, back-end-mounted cameras automatically turn on and transmit live to a cabin monitor in a mirrored image so that drivers see the correct orientation. The technology was becoming a popular competitive feature a decade ago. But in light of an estimated 15,000 injuries a year resulting from backup collisions, according to NHTSA, safety regulators made it mandatory in May 2018, requiring every new vehicle sold in the U.S. to include rearview cameras.
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Over-the-air updates make cars changeable products
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Automotive over-the-air updates have long been associated with Tesla, which has offered customers the ability to upgrade features on their vehicles wirelessly for years. But OTA updates are soon to become big business across the industry. General Motors said last year it is expecting up to $25 billion in annual revenue from software and subscription services by 2030. Stellantis hopes for $23 billion a year by that time, saying it will offer customers the opportunity to pay for horsepower upgrades, new audio and video streaming features and other capabilities.
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V2X tech will let drivers ‘see’ around corners
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Vehicles will be able to effectively see through other cars on the road and even see what’s coming at them around corners thanks to new “vehicle-to-everything” (V2X) technology. Automakers and suppliers say advanced systems will allow vehicles to gather information from sensors on other vehicles, as well as sensors that municipalities build into roadways, stoplights and buildings. Supplier giant Continental is in development on a system it calls “Collective Perception” that it hopes will soon be able to reduce blind spots in vehicle safety systems.
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Harder to fill a factory job
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Headlines this summer may have shown an encouraging uptick in new jobs across the country. But a strange new reality has changed the game in the U.S. economy: There are not enough workers to fill all the open jobs in every sector — including automotive manufacturing. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported in July that 4.5 million Americans had quit their jobs since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. The chamber estimated that there are now 11.5 million unfilled jobs in the country and only 5.9 million unemployed Americans. The data won’t surprise many in the auto sector, where recruiters have been struggling to fill vacancies for years. The reasons are many: The fear of COVID has made factory jobs less appealing to many young workers. Manufacturing wages have not kept up with inflation. A spectrum of fast-growing new national employers — Amazon, UPS, Walmart — are aggressively competing for workers. And then there is “The Great Resignation” — in which millions of workers have responded to the interruption of normal life during the pandemic by deciding to do something else for a living. Internet job search firm Zippia estimates that 20 percent of women and 18 percent of men quit their jobs. Regardless of anyone’s motivation, the auto industry faces new challenges in filling jobs and holding on to work forces at a time of robust demand for new vehicles and heavy investment in new plants. Shown are workers at Toyota’s plant in Princeton, Ind., where Toyota has boosted wages and benefits to fill job openings.
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Outsourced work comes home again
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For decades, automakers have hungrily looked for pieces of the vehicle production process that could be offloaded to suppliers to reduce costs, raise output and lower employee head count. Among the outsourced content across the industry: seats, wire harnesses, electronics and transmissions. But the assumption behind that long-term trend is now being challenged. Tesla started the reversal when it began bringing parts in house at its plant in Fremont, Calif. Tesla introduced in-house seat production there, started manufacturing advanced sensor systems it previously sourced from Mobileye and even has begun building an advanced battery in house, despite having a strong partnership with battery maker Panasonic. For some automakers, the rationale is the opposite of what it once was — instead of wanting to pare head counts, companies are mindful that mass-producing EVs requires fewer parts and fewer workers and thus could result in widespread job losses. Companies now are thinking of ways to protect jobs. Mercedes has decided to build its own electric motors in house. And Skoda has begun making its own wire harnesses.
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Looking into the future is easier
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Every auto part will eventually fail. But what if automakers could foretell when that will happen? Thanks to the emerging science of predictive analytics, they can now determine the odds of failure, which will have a bearing on product engineering, purchasing decisions and even retail service planning. Knowing with reasonable statistical assurance that a given part is likely to fail in 18 to 24 months across a model line also will enable automakers to make decisions about ramping up production of replacement parts. What made it suddenly feasible? One, the industry realized there was value in sharing parts information among companies to create a vast ocean of data offering a composite picture of trends and incidents, much like actuarial data in the insurance industry. And two, the arrival of cloud computing, which permits analysts to crunch giant volumes of ever-changing data to glimpse the future.
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An early piece of automated driving already caught on
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The idea of automated driving is still being cautiously chewed over by consumers, manufacturers and regulators. But one early piece of it has already gained market acceptance: Lane-keep assist is now widespread and changing the way drivers behave. The technology — standard but not mandatory — discourages vehicles from drifting out of the lane with the help of camera sensors on the front of the rear-view mirror that identify lane markings. The system will intervene with a vibration or a chime if the vehicle drifts over the marking without a turn signal. Some versions nudge the steering wheel or even selectively brake. Many in the industry wonder whether fully autonomous Level 5 vehicle control will ever arrive, but this light nudging is already accepted. Shown is an illustration of lane-keep assist on a Kia Niro.
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An early piece of automated driving already caught on
New interest in shorter supply lines
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Clogged seaports, snarled border crossings, truck driver shortages and punitive trade tariffs — they’re all making automakers and Tier 1 suppliers rethink their exposure to far-flung suppliers. In some cases, supply chains are making greater use of local warehousing — a practice frowned on in 30 years of adherence to lean manufacturing philosophy. The Detroit market had 6.7 million square feet of new warehouse space under construction in the second quarter of this year, according to the commercial real estate company Avison Young. But in other cases, manufacturers are calling for more localized production of components currently sourced overseas. Chief among them: semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries. Both Europe and North America are witnessing booming investment in new microchip production. SkyWater Technology of Minnesota in July said it would invest $1.8 billion to build a chip plant in West Lafayette, Ind. Congress’ CHIPS Act would provide $52 billion in funding for microchip investments in hopes of creating a local supply base of the critical components. In June, USA Rare Earth announced a plant for U.S. production of permanent magnets — an obscure but vital EV component that currently is imported from China. Shown is a massive crane preparing to work on Intel’s $20 billion project in Arizona to construct more microchip production capacity in the U.S.
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Outsmarting the pirates
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Digital fingerprinting now permits automakers and suppliers to track and authenticate parts across supply chains and distribution systems. Because every physical object is unique at the granular level, artificial intelligence camera systems can take a high-resolution reading of every product coming off the production line, then convert the information into a digital profile that is registered and stored. The advance in technology will be critical in verifying product authenticity and determining the place and time of a part’s origin, detecting tampering, and measuring wear and tear for vehicle service work. A study by Frontier Economics estimated that counterfeiting and piracy’s total global economic value could reach $2.3 trillion this year. Alitheon, of Bellevue, Wash., says it’s working with two automakers and at least three Tier 1 suppliers on a software system that uses 5,000 “points of interest” to fully identify a single brake pad. Shown: Magnifying a brake pad to see its identity.
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A new star appears on the hardware scene
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Telematic control units have emerged as critical hardware as automakers look to connect vehicles to 5G networks and to other vehicles. TCUs are systems built into a vehicle that allow it to connect to a cellular network, giving it access to data from other connected vehicles, while also gathering data on the vehicle itself. It’s not only a new area of technology for vehicle developers to incorporate, it’s also a new product segment for suppliers. Companies are vying to develop TCUs that can quickly process vast amounts of data generated by vehicles on the road. Continental says its TCUs are “highly customizable” and can be used to support autonomous driving functions.
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Instant authentication at 70 mph
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Vehicle connectivity promises to enable a car or its passengers to communicate with a retail business, health care provider, bank, vendor or automaker through on-board electronics. But doing that with ease while driving the vehicle at 70 miles an hour will require simple and secure personal authentication. Mercedes-Benz has opened a spectrum of possibilities by using an individual’s fingerprint to authenticate commands, payments, uploads and downloads. Mercedes’ Daimler Mobility unit has partnered with Visa to use fingerprint scans to verify secure digital payments from the vehicle, allowing a driver to make purchases without the need for voice commands, personal identification numbers or distracting button pushing. A fingerprint scan activates up to 800 personalized driver profiles in the latest Mercedes-Benz vehicles, including the top-of-the-line S-Class sedan and its battery-powered variant, the EQS. The technology is aimed at addressing the need for both driving safety and data security as the industry moves deeper into automated vehicles. Shown: A fingerprint confirms a driver’s identity on new Mercedes vehicles.
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The big bet: 5G will take connectivity to a new level
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New 5G cellular networks hold enough promise for automakers that they are planning for changes in how vehicles operate and how manufacturing can be improved. 5G raises the amount of bandwidth a company or a vehicle can use, allowing them to increase the amount of data that can be sent to connected and autonomous vehicles. 5G networks will allow manufacturers to adopt more automated factory processes, send large over-the-air software updates to vehicles at faster speeds, and enable more features to be rolled out and quicker fixes to be made. Automakers also say 5G connectivity in vehicles will allow for greater mapping capabilities for automated driving, and help passengers to more easily stream movies and TV shows or make calls inside the vehicle.
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Reporter: Lindsay Chappell