The Mobile World Congress opened in Barcelona on 27th February, wherein major smartphone brands unveiled some of their most-anticipated devices. Accompanying them at world’s biggest technology event are automotive manufacturers that are set to provide buyers with an insight into the trends of future mobility, connectivity and safety. Among the few that are present at the event are Daimler, BMW, Ford and Peugeot.
Peugeot steps into the autonomous mobility segment
Peugeot has earned itself a reputation for developing eccentric concept cars such as Proxima, Asphalt and Moovie. The French manufacturer unveiled its latest concept ‘Instinct’ at MWC on 27th February.
Peugeot’s Instinct
Peugeot’s Instinct, a plug-in hybrid that demonstrates the company’s partnership with Samsung’s Artik Cloud IoT connectivity platform, is expected to make its official debut at the Geneva Motor Show next month. The vehicle sports a special feature which — thanks to data science company Sentiance — uses data from the driver’s electronic devices such as smartwatches, smartphones, social networks and more to make the profile for him/her.
Peugeot’s Instinct
“In the future, maybe you will have cars that can be only autonomous, and it will be forbidden to drive anymore,” says Matthias Hossann, head of concept car and advanced design at Peugeot. “But this transition will be very long and what we wanted to illustrate here is part of this transition, because this will take time,” he added.
The company says that the technology under-pinning the car won’t be entering production until 2025 at the earliest.
Mercedes-Benz and its CASE strategy
Automaker Mercedes’ plans to showcase its ‘CASE’ strategy for autonomous driving, ride-sharing electric mobile and the car as an element of future healthcare were known since December last year. CASE — which stands for Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Service and Electric Drive — is the company’s newly created corporate strategy that aims to bring all the mega-trends together.
CASE — which stands for Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Service and Electric Drive — is the company’s newly created corporate strategy that aims to bring all the mega-trends together.
According to the company, the biggest immediate changes that are required to be brought about is to move from fossil fuels to a more environment-friendly form of propulsion, and from driving to being driven.
Mercedes Concept EQ
Moreover, visitors will also receive the opportunity to explore the Concept EQ with VR and check out the COMAND Online connectivity and navigation tools in the Mercedes-Benz E Class Coupe. Apart from that, the company will also be making its ‘smart ready to share’ service and ‘smart ready to drop’ debut. The former essentially allows owners to share a car with friends or co-workers, while the latter allows package delivers right to the owner’s trunks.
BMW to expand its connected-car plans
The future of intelligent driver-car connectivity is one of the key topics the BMW Group will be addressing at the MWC 2017 event in Barcelona. The company is also using the occasion to highlight the shape of things to come for autonomous parking.
The future of intelligent driver-car connectivity is one of the key topics the BMW Group will be addressing at the MWC 2017 event in Barcelona.
As far as the BMW Connected service is concerned, the company aims to keep their customers on time, in touch and in control via multiple touch points such as smartphones, smartwatches and voice assistants. The features of the service, such as trip planning and remote control functions, are focused on the user and delivered in an intelligent, personalised form adapted to the user’s context. The foundation of the service is the Open Mobility Cloud, built on Microsoft Azure, which processes data from multiple sources and presents the user just the right information at the right time.
The devices that can be linked to the vehicle using BMW Connected currently include smartphones (iOS and Android), smart devices like the Apple Watch and Samsung Gear (S2 and S3) as well as the Amazon Echo. In the future, this will enable BMW Connected to alert the user when their BMW is due for service and offer a choice of appointments at their local dealer. User personalisation and convenience are set to be further enhanced by the arrival of a new service being tested for the first time in the UK from the middle of this year.
Roborace debuts world’s first electric racing car
Robocar took to MWC for the unveiling of its driverless electric race car Roborace. The new addition is expected to open a new dimension in motor sports. The vehicle makes use of numerous technologies to “drive” itself including five lidars (using light from laser), two radars, 18 sensors and six separate cameras.
With Robocar, the company aims to bring driverless technology to Formula E circuits in 2017.
The vehicle is conceived by ex-Bugatti designer Daniel Simon who is also famous for designing vehicles for Hollywood science-fiction block-busters like Tron Legacy and Oblivion. With Robocar, the company aims to bring driverless technology to Formula E circuits in 2017. Roboraces will be scheduled before each Formula E race, in major cities around the world and will be televised in over 100 countries to millions of viewers globally. Eventually, the company hopes its innovations would be applied to normal road cars, making "passenger and commercial vehicles safer".
The autonomous race-car features a carbon-fibre design, weighing 975 kilograms and measuring around 4.8 metres long and two metres wide. The vehicle is powered by four motors and a single battery that is capable of speeds over 320 kilometres per hour.
“Robocar opens a new dimension where motorsports as we know it meets the unstoppable rise of artificial intelligence,” said Simon. “Whilst pushing the boundaries of engineering, we styled every single part of the Robocar. We take special pride in revealing a functional machine that stays true to the initial concept shared,” he added.
