Volvo (“made by Sweden”) is forming a new joint partnership with Autoliv, called Zenuity, with a focus on developing self-driving automotive software. The plan is to eventually get to the point where they can field self-driving cars for sale, based on Nvidia’s Drive PX in-car AI computing platform, by the not-so-distant target year of 2021. Nvidia’s Drive PX is already being used to power self-driving vehicles in road testing today, including Nvidia’s own demo vehicles. Volvo and Autoliv’s Zenuity will use Nvidia’s AI car compute groundwork as the basis for their own software development, with the hopes of speeding up the development progress of Volvo’s commercially-targeted autonomous vehicles.

STMicroelectronics has released two new MOSFETs in the advanced PowerFLAT Dual Side Cooling (DSC) package. These components measure just 5 x 6 mm, enabling higher power density in automotive electronic control units (ECUs)...

A new study by Nuance communications and the Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI) investigates the best method to alert the ‘driver’ in driverless cars. It appears that drivers react more quickly to a nudge (haptic) or audible alert rather than a visual indicator to tell them they need to take over control, can driverless ever be completely safe?

The application of LEDs in the headlights of cars not only makes a considerable energy saving possible, but also attractive designs and applications such as a matrix high-beam headlight that will not dazzle the oncoming traffic…

The European GNSS Agency (GSA, the organization behind the European Galileo satellite navigation system) has given the start signal for a three-year project with a donation of more than five million euro...

I believe it is a good thing that handling a smartphone when behind the wheel is illegal and risks high fines, because it seriously affects the safety on the road. In Japan they do this differently, like many other things …

Here’s an inspiring story showing how technology can really change lives and bring a level of independence back to people suffering paralysis: Sam Schmidt, was at one time a rising star in the US Indy Racing League until an accident cut short his career and left him with paralysis in his arms and legs. He has not been idle since the accident and still has his own team even though he can’t drive himself. Last week however he was awarded a drivers licence to drive his Corvette...

Now available in the Elektor Store is the brand new title: The Car Hacker's Handbook. This book aims to give you a deeper understanding of the computer systems and embedded software in modern vehicles, examining vehicle vulnerabilities and providing detailed explanations of communications over the CAN bus as well as between devices.

During the manufacture of hybrid and electric cars, and then mostly in the electric motors, up to now frequent use has been made of rare-earth metals. Neodymium as a magnetic material is quite temperature sensitive. To improve on this characteristic, the very rare dysprosium and/or terbium is currently added, both very scarce and only available from China (neodymium is also mined in the US and Australia and is considerably less scarce).

An e-Bio fuel-cell prototype vehicle is claimed by Nissan to run on 100-percent ethanol or ethanol-blended water to charge a 24-kWh battery, achieving a cruising range of more than 600 km