3 Takeaways from the North American International Auto Show
Last week, SEEVA exhibited and spoke at the last Detroit Auto Show before the event moves to warmer months next year. Our team met with customers, partners, and the larger industry to continue driving our mission to increase people’s trust in mobility. Here are a couple things we learned throughout the week.
Reality over hype will drive long-term success
The transportation industry has become a sustaining topic of conversation. Dedicated news outlet sections like Bloomberg’s Hyperdrive and Wired’s Transportation, among others, showcase the breadth and depth of changes sweeping an industry that is constantly being redefined through autonomous vehicles, electric cars, scooters, flying vehicles, and drones, among many other things.
CES and NAIAS helped to set a new tone for the transportation industry — more reality, less hype. To foster the consumer trust that’s needed to scale new technology concepts, like AVs, transportation companies and media must hold each other accountable for setting and delivering realistic progress.
OEMs are still envirofencing their AV pilots at best
At the show, Diane spoke on a panel with executives from May Mobility, Blackmore, Arbe Robotics, and ETAS to highlight what’s driving our autonomous future. In the discussion, companies working on all levels of the automotive perception stack acknowledged that poor environmental conditions are still solved for by manually wiping off the blocked sensor or envirofencing the vehicle until conditions improve.
Our belief at SEEVA is that one of best ways to make an AV safe enough for mass adoption is to account for avoiding, mitigating, and removing surface blockages. No single sensor or software solution alone can address all three blockage areas, making it imperative that OEM engineering teams evaluate current AV product plans and account for technologies on the vehicle that address each area.
One OEM executive told us that their AV testing in Florida was first envirofenced and then suspended due to their AV systems shutting down every time a bug smashed onto and blocked a perception sensor. Only together will our industry eliminate envirofencing so we can continue making forward progress.
Automotive partnerships, alliances, and coalitions are in
Advancing ADAS, AVs, and shared mobility solutions are big feats that might be best accomplished with others. Long-term competitors in the automotive industry are embracing the power of partnerships and coalitions to more rapidly innovate and succeed. We’re already having trouble keeping up but here are a few announced this month that are worth reading about:
· PAVE coalition launches broad-based public education campaign on automated vehicles
· Ford, Volkswagen announce partnership to jointly develop commercial vans, pickups
· Daimler-BMW Mobility Services Joint Venture To Be Named “Jurbey”
What are we missing? Did you learn something from CES or NAIAS that you’d add to this list? Reach us at info@seeva.tech.
