Hyundai | Aptiv | New Autonomous Driving Joint Venture the JV’S Plan to Land Signifcant Revenue from RoboTaxi Feets by 2025 Was Made Prior to the Covid-19 Pandemic
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On Automotive Electronics THE HANSEN REPORT ON AUTomoTIVE ELECTRONICS Hyundai | Aptiv | New Autonomous Driving Joint Venture The JV’s plan to land signifcant revenue from robo taxi feets by 2025 was made prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. That plan has not been altered but it has caused the company to consider modify- ing its product. These days most people would be unwilling to jump into a robotaxi for fear of contact with unclean surfaces. The JV is considering a num- ber of initiatives to keep robotaxis disinfected, either manually or automatically. And further, it will have to make the entire mobility experience as non-con- tact as possible, maybe with access doors that open and close automatically. It would be far better for the JV (and everyone) if we soon have a vaccine and they do not need to consider how to operate with the risks of contagion. © scharfsinn86 | stock.adobe.com The JV is pointing toward three ways in which it The JV plans to have some kind of driverless system ready for the robotaxi market by 2022 will distinguish itself from Waymo, Cruise, Argo AI, Aurora and the many other autonomous vehicle developers. In partnership with Lyft, its 75-vehicle In 2017 Aptiv (Delphi without the split-off power- in cash on the JV’s balance sheet will fund the new robotaxi feet in Las Vegas has already delivered train division) capped off its plan to transition the company for the next several years. more 100,000 rides (with safety drivers). The JV company from a traditional components supplier The headcount, which stood at 800 in May, will is learning how to deliver a great rider experience. to a higher tech version of itself with the acquisi- climb to 1000 by year end 2020, according to Aptiv. Second, the JV is focused on delivering a platform tion of nuTonomy, a Boston-based autonomous The JV supports development centers in Boston, that is highly cost-optimized. And third, its footprint vehicle technology developer. Aptiv paid 400 million Las Vegas, Singapore, Santa Monica and Seoul. in the USA and Asia means that it can set up robo- US dollars plus 50 million US dollars in earn outs Target: the Robotaxi Market taxi feets in many different locations. Candidate for nuTonomy. The JV plans to have its driverless system ready for sites for robotaxi feets already include Las Vegas Bringing self-driving technology to market has the robotaxi market by 2022, and while the driver- and Singapore. Others will be selected based on proven to be a lot harder and more expensive than less platform will be its main product, to establish regulatory landscape, weather, driving conditions people realized. Signifcant revenues are at least its validity the JV will initially operate robotaxi feets. and the market opportunity. fve more years out. Aptiv’s pockets were not deep The partners expect those feets will deliver hundreds enough, so it sold half of its L4 self-driving venture of millions of dollars in revenue in 2025. As system Simulation is Fine But Real to Hyundai for 2 billion US dollars: 1.6 billion US dol- costs come down, by 2030 or so the JV expects to World Testing Also a Must lars in cash, plus 400 million US dollars worth of begin marketing its AV platform to makers of person- Still, there are huge obstacles standing in the JV’s engineering services that Hyundai will provide to the ally owned vehicles. Hyundai will be an obvious cus- path to the robotaxi market. Each of the sensors 50-50 Joint Venture (JV). The 1.6 billion US dollars tomer to target. The JV’s driverless platform includes must meet automotive requirements, and mecha- integrated sensors, the computer and software along nisms for keeping the sensors clean are needed. with connectivity to a cloud service so robotaxi feets Affordable solid-state lidar sensors are not nearly $ 4 billion can be monitored and coordinated by remote opera- ready. The powerful computer at the center of the tors. According to Karl Iagnemma, President and platform needs to cost less and consume less power. CEO of the yet unnamed JV, R&D for the AV system is Not much road testing can be done these days with nearly complete. “We are way past the stage of focus- much of the world in lockdown due to the corona- ing on demos and pilots; we are building products for virus, so developers must rely to an even greater the real world,” he said. What remains is the industri- extent on simulation. “Simulation does certain things $ 450 million alization. The platform needs to meet automotive reli- very well, such as allowing us to test the perfor- ability and quality standards and to be deeply inte- mance and reliability of our policy engine, but there 2017 2020 grated into the vehicle. Along with cash, it is these are gaps,” said Iagnemma. “Simulation today has trouble with the physical properties of the driving 1000 employees capabilities that Hyundai brings to the partnership. environment, which would allow us to test our per- Joint Efforts Needed for Success of AD ception systems.” Simulating radar signal returns “A few years ago, a lot of experts believed that from different obstacles is especially challenging. success in autonomy was going to come from software 130 employees development hubs in Silicon Valley,” said Iagnemma. IPO Not Ruled Out © [M] Aptiv© [M] “That’s no longer the case. You need a deep strategic The JV will soon select a new name for itself. “This 2017 2020 relationship with a global automaker. … We found is fundamentally a new business, so we are going Aptiv’s autonomous driving venture’s valuation the perfect partner in Hyundai. What Hyundai does to take the opportunity with a new brand to tell our and the number of employees were going up fast better than anyone in the world is mass produce a story and reintroduce ourselves to the world,” said in the past highly cost-optimized vehicle at very large scale.” Iagnemma, who is not ruling out an eventual IPO. 24 On Automotive Electronics Microsoft | Amazon | Automotive Cloud Computing Market – Who Dominates? According to Microsoft, cloud computing is the deliv- Last year, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi launched for its global availability and breadth of services, ery of computing services – including servers, stor- Alliance Intelligent Cloud, a platform that will including IoT, machine learning and analytics. age, databases, networking, software, analytics, and deliver connected services in vehicles sold in For the last two years, the Toyota Research Insti- intelligence – over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer nearly all 200 markets served by Alliance member tute has been using AWS’s deep learning framework faster innovation, fexible resources, and economies companies. The connected vehicle program will to train ADAS and autonomous systems it is devel- of scale. Customers typically pay only for the cloud be deployed utilizing cloud, artifcial intelligence oping. Denso and AWS have been collaborating to services they use, which helps to lower operating and IoT technologies provided by Microsoft Azure. offer connected vehicle solutions from the edge to costs, letting them deploy infrastructure more eff- Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle Platform busi- the cloud. Joint solutions include real-time mapping ciently and scale as their business needs change. ness has also won signifcant engagements with and telemetry, detection of suspicious activity near By now, most carmakers are embedding cellular Cerence, Ericsson, LG Electronics, ZF Friedrichs- the vehicle, and real-time driving event detection. modems in their new vehicles, and that has led to hafen, Faurecia and Luxoft, among others. Denso is partially owned by Toyota. Numerous auto- a strong demand for automotive cloud computing, a motive players have developed connected vehicle market that is expected to reach 10 billion US dollars Amazon Best in Cloud, solutions with AWS including Aptiv, Lyft, Kia, by 2025. The market is led by two of the world’s big- Microsoft Best in Automotive Hyundai, Here, BMW and Audi, among others. gest tech companies, Microsoft and Amazon. While Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds the largest “Most OEMs have developed a connectivity strat- Thus far, Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle Plat- share of the overall 100 billion US dollars cloud mar- egy and are either completely connected or in the form appears to have landed the most business. In ket, with a 33-% share, it is second to Microsoft when process of connecting their feets,” said Dean February 2020, Microsoft and Volkswagen launched it comes to signifcant automotive engagements. Philips, Technology Leader for Automotive at AWS. a strategic partnership that will make the Volks- AWS’s biggest collaboration is with Ford and Auto- “With this foundation in place we are now seeing wagen Automotive Cloud one of the largest dedicated nomic, a Ford subsidiary charged with creating Ford’s more aggressive investments in machine learning, clouds in the automotive industry. More than fve Transportation Mobility Cloud (TMC). TMC will be pow- analytics, artifcial intelligence and data lakes. Car- million new Volkswagen vehicles will be connected to ered by AWS to become the standard connected car makers are fnding ways to turn their data into new Microsoft’s Azure cloud and edge platform each year. solution for Ford vehicles. Ford says they chose AWS products and services and making better vehicles.” imbach | stock.adobe.com L © Alexander Automotive industry: cloudy with a chance of business models ATZ electronics worldwide 07-08|2020 25 THE HANSEN REPORT ON AUTomoTIVE ELECTRONICS Mentor | Siemens | Roll-out of Full E/E