The car of the future will be clean and connected, and it is becoming clear that those two aspects will come hand in hand.
At Automotive Megatrends USA, the Automotive World-organised conference held in Detroit, the topic of the connected and efficient car was one of much conversation.
At the conference, Frank Weith, General Manager Connected Services at Volkswagen Group of America, explained that it is possible to utilise connectivity to reduce the carbon footprint of the car. “Sustainable action is a necessity,” he explained. “Connected aspects of the car, such as predictive navigation intelligence, can make the future car more intuitive, reactive and efficient.”
Paul Asel, Managing Partner at Nokia Growth Partners, also presented at the conference, highlighting how urban landscapes in the future will be transformed by the connected car, which with its advanced technology will be able to help, or even solve issues surrounding inner-city traffic and parking. “Most driving in a city is short range,” he noted. “Connectivity will enable cars to communicate with each other and the infrastructure to drive closer together, for example, which will enable them to become far more efficient. Cities today are designed for automotive but in the future this will not be the case without connectivity.”
‘Enabling electric and connected vehicles’ was the title of a presentation by Chris Borroni-Bird, Vice President, Strategic Development at Qualcomm. Borroni-Bird explained that in the long-term, both aspects – connectivity and electrification – will reach their extreme, with the potential for ‘automated’ to mean ‘fully automated’, like the Google car; pure battery electric vehicles (EVs) with the range, performance and features of a traditional car which will be wirelessly charged; and connectivity ranging from something as simple as allowing drivers to access map information via their smartphone in their car, all the way up to vehicles that are connected to each other, to the infrastructure, the Cloud, pedestrians and cyclists, and to other devices.
As the vehicle becomes more automated, connected and electrified, it becomes more synergistic with the products that Qualcomm supports today which are connected, electrified devices, explained Borroni-Bird: “We see a lot of opportunity to enable future vehicles to address safety and congestion, as well as the energy and environmental concerns facing the automotive industry.”
Rachel Boagey
