industry news
Ford & Google ‘to partner on
driverless cars’
S
earch giant Google and Ford are in advanced
talks to collaborate on autonomous cars, it has
emerged.Reuters and other news outlets are
reporting that discussions have been underway for
months and could result in the Blue Oval building
driverless cars for Google.
It’s not as easy as it looks manufacturing vehicles especially not for a company whose expertise lies
in the digital space and which has little experience
in building physical objects. Ford, by contast, has
been doing it for more than a century and boasts
plenty of factory capacity and a strong supplier
network. Google has planned from the off to partner with existing car makers to realise its driverless
ambitions.
Ford CEO Mark Fields met Google founder Sergey
Brin in California earlier in December 2015, it has
emerged. Although both companies declined to
comment on the talks, the reality is that the search
giant is likely talking to most major car manufacturers. Don’t forget that former Blue Oval boss Alan
Mulally is now a director at Google and a number of
ex-Ford execs and engineers have been poached by
the Moutain View-based digital specialist.
Hyundai launch Luxury Sub-Brand
H
yundai has announced the creation of
a separate sub-brand named Genesis,
launched in December 2015. The Genesis
name is currently attached to Hyundai’s flagship
luxury saloon, but is being turned into an overall
name for a new family of cars, with up to six new
Genesis models planned by 2020.
German giants buy Nokia Here
B
MW, Audi and Daimler (Mercedes) have
successfully completed their €2.8 billion
(£2 billion) joint purchase of Nokia’s
Here mapping business. Following an earlier
announcement in August, this confirms the
acquisition has met with approval from all the
relevant authorities.
Nokia’s Here is an open-platform, cloud-enhanced navigation system, which already supplies map data for cars in North America and
Europe. It uses a combination of ‘static’ data
captured by cars fitted with high-resolution
3D-mapping technology and real-time information supplied by a network of connected devices
– including but not limited to cars – in order to
provide accurate, up-to-date detail.
‘The reason we have allied with Mercedes and
Volkswagen [Audi] is because in autonomous
driving, the map becomes fundamental. There
are three mapping companies in the world:
Google, Here and TomTom. We decided we
wanted to own one as it’s fundamental to a lot
of things. It’s a good idea to share it, it’s important to have an open platform [which Here will
remain] and between the three German OEMs
we’re selling 10 million cars a year. The realtime updating will have [better] density as an
information source [with a greater scale of vehicles].
‘Current mapping is accurate to just under one
metre, but for autonomy it needs to be accurate
to less than one centimetre. It needs updating
extremely quickly, forms a fundamental part of
driving the business forward, and a different
business model.’
new variation of the wing-shaped badge currently
found on the Genesis saloon, and be given a suspension tuning that prioritises ride comfort over
taut handling.
The new model line is set to launch in the United
States, China and the Middle East at first. Although
Each model name will start with a ‘G’ followed by
it hasn’t been ruled out, the brand’s unlikely to make
a number – G90, G80, G70 and so on – dependan appearance in the UK, at least initially.
ing on the size of the car. A coupe version of the
existing Genesis saloon(pictured), a new version
The new Genesis models will get different design
treatment, with styling handled by a new ‘Prestige of the Equus saloon and an inevitable SUV or two
Design Division’ within the company. They’ll wear a are all thought to be in the pipeline.