Technology

Following a teaser last week, Citroen has lifted the lid on its Ami One concept, a minuscule pod-like vehicle that represents the French brand’s vision for urban mobility.

You may have heard that 5G networks are going to change the world, creating an "internet of things", but one innovation that's really impressive is the ability to use the technology to connect cars in a way that will prevent up to 68 per cent of all road accidents.

Road-safety groups across Europe are pushing for technology that would make it possible for cars to prevent you from exceeding the speed limit, and calling for its inclusion to be mandatory in all new vehicles by 2022.

In a world in which we no longer drive ourselves, where our cars are more like trains, will we need so many different brands to choose between? Can they all survive, or will the big marques fold into one another, leaving just a few giant players standing?It certainly seems possible when you consider that two titans of the industry, Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. are well on the way to an agreement to join forces to build autonomous cars.Bloomberg has reported that talks between the two companies over the plan, after initially stalling, are now progressing well, with the breakthrough being a possible framework that would allow VW to work with and invest in Argo AI, the Ford-backed self-driving-car start-up.While the talks are high level and private, sources have been leaking the news that the two companies have discussed a valuation for the joint company of $US4 billion.Officially, a VW spokesman told Bloomberg his company is in “constructive talks” with Ford, while a spokeswoman for the American giant said discussions were ongoing and had been productive.The deal would build on an agreement signed between the two in January to build commercial vehicles together. What price an eventual merger?At the very least, a joint venture on autonomous tech between the world’s largest car company and Ford would create a seemingly unbeatable colossus in the race to dominate the self-driving market, dwarfing even Google/Alphabet’s Waymo, and GM’s Cruise unit.Ford CEO Jim Hackett has already said he believes the market will one day be worth $US10 trillion. This really could be the future of everything, and not every company will get there.“There’s not going to be 10 winners in this space when we look back,” Hackett has said. “There’s going to be a few, and we plan on being one of them.”While Ford would bring the self-driving software it has been developing to the table - which would then be equally owned by the two companies - VW will being its electric-vehicle technology to the bargain, creating a formidable combination of IP.“The fact is, nobody can go it alone,” said industry analyst Michelle Krebs.“These are very expensive ventures with tremendous technological challenges. And the business challenge is just as difficult.”

Independent statutory board Infrastructure Australia has listed a nationwide electric vehicle (EV) charging network as a high-priority initiative for 2019.

The idea of an Apple Car - beautifully designed, always connected, obviously autonomous and reassuringly expensive - seems like a surefire home run, yet it seems to be taking longer to come to market than the hover boards from Back to the Future II.This might lead you to think there’s little substance to the rumours, but the fact Apple is genuinely working on a self-self-driving car has been proven with the release yesterday of data from the California Department of Motor Vehicles that shows that Apple undertook exactly 128,337km of testing for its mysterious machine in 2018.Apple is famously super secretive and would never voluntarily admit to anything at all, but under Californian law all companies testing autonomous vehicles must log the miles its vehicles have done without a driver at the wheel, and the authorities then release those figures to the public.California regulators call these “disengagement reports”, which measure how often a human driver had to intervene to take control from an autonomous-driving system during testing on public roads.Because this is a pretty serious safety issue, as you can imagine. Apple, which wouldn’t comment beyond the documents it was forced to file publicly, only applied for a permit to conduct testing in California in 2017, and it lags well behind the leader in the autonomous-driving field, Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, the cool arm of Google.Waymo has conducted 16 million kilometres of testing around the world for what used to be called the Google Car.Comparatively, though, Apple is ramping up its road-testing schedule, because last year’s 120,000km-plus figure compared to just 1348km in 2017.So, Google/Alphabet/Waymo might well beat Apple onto public roads with self-driving cars, or taxis, but make no mistake, the Apple Car is coming. And the queues at your local Apple Store/Garage will be huge. 

It sounds almost too good to be true, and in the real world it would probably be prohibitively expensive, but Ford has come up with a bed that utilities its lane-keeping technology to put selfish bed hogs back in their place, literally.

In a move that has the genuine potential to save thousands of lives, and prevent millions of injuries, the EU and Japan have backed a draft United Nations regulation to make Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) mandatory on all new cars and light commercial vehicles from 2020.The regulation would impose strict requirements on all new cars built from that date to be able to brake automatically if danger is detected at speeds of up to 60km/h.It’s a move that will definitely save lives, according to the UN Economic Commission for Europe."It activates the brake to stop a crash. It will not drive, it will brake," UNECE spokesman Jean Rodriguez told a briefing. He added that there would be no obligation to retrofit older vehicles with AEB, no doubt due to the huge potential cost.Japan and the EU have agreed to the deal to make AEB systems mandatory on all cars they build - which adds up to four million a year in Japan and 15m in Europe.Unfortunately, the US, China and India are not signatories to the agreement. India has, however, announced that it will demand AEB be mandatory on all new vehicles by 2022, and it’s very much a live issue in the US as well, with many car makers pledging, outside of any legislation, to make it standard equipment by 2022.The UNECE said the wider roll-out of AEB (which is already in many modern cars) would help to save lives in urban settings in particular.In Europe alone, more than 9500 people died in car car crashes inside city limits in 2016, and 40 per cent of those were pedestrians.You’ll no doubt be surprised to hear that Australia is dragging the chain on making AEB a compulsory fitment to new cars sold here, despite a campaign by VicRoads to make it happen.VicRoads' acting deputy chief executive, Robyn Seymour, has been pushing for a change to ADRs to make AEB compulsory, just as we did with electronic stability control systems, back in 2011."In a range of forums we have had with the Commonwealth, we have been advocating for the fact that the Commonwealth has a key role to play in the space of road safety and they have one of the strongest capacities to ensure we are getting safer vehicles on the road,” Ms Seymour said."It is one of the technologies we know will be very effective in reducing crashes so we’re keen to work with them on how we might develop that ADR.”In a 2014 investigation, the RACV found that up to 40 per cent of crashes could be prevented by the technology.

It had to happen; Tesla, and Elon Musk, have finally gone to the dogs. The famously quirky and fast-reacting company has announced that it will launch 'Dog Mode' for its cars - via an over-the-air software update - this week.Unusually, Dog Mode - which is designed to make the interior of a Tesla more pleasant for dogs, or other pets, that have been left in there - was not one of Musk’s own crazy ideas.Twitter user Josh Atchley originally pitched the idea to social-media-addicted Musk in October last year, asking whether it would be possible to have a mode that would leave a Tesla’s air conditioning, and music, on while the car is parked, so he could leave his dog in the vehicle.He also suggested it would be a good idea to leave a message on the giant multimedia screen saying “I’m fine, my owner will be right back.”Why? Because dog owners are taking over the world, that’s why. No one has suggested that Dog Mode would work for children left in cars, of course, because that would still be a terrible, and illegal, idea.(Hyundai’s Santa Fe takes a slightly different, but clever, approach to animals, or humans, you may have left in the car, perhaps by accident. The car has an ultrasonic sensor in the headliner to detect motion in the rear seats, which will then notify the driver to check back there after turning off the engine. If that doesn’t work, and the vehicle is locked with someone, or some living thing, inside, the system sets off an alarm - it’s the kind of high-tech idea Musk would be proud of.)Imagine Mr Atchley’s surprise when Musk Tweeted back, “Yes”. On February 7th, Musk updated him with another Tweet announcing “Sentry Mode (and Dog Mode) roll out next week”.Sentry Mode was yet another idea pitched to Musk by a Twitter user, who requested a “360 dash-cam feature while parked”.The concept, which is actually a very good one, is to use the various exterior cameras found on Tesla vehicles to constantly monitor what’s happening around, or to, the vehicle while it’s parked.This would mean that if your car was scratched, bumped or even broken into, you’d have video evidence to provide to authorities.If you’ve got an idea for a feature that Tesla should add to its cars (don’t try “make them fly” because Musk is already working on that one, via another Tweet.), feel free to get on Twitter and suggest it. It really is that easy.

In the race to be the first company in the world to get a fully functioning autonomous car into showrooms and on to public roads, it looks like global giant Toyota might just beat the high-tech Germans, and sci-fi loving Tesla, with the company pledging to offer a self-driving, road-registrable car within the next year.Toyota knows how big a task this is, indeed it’s being described as the company’s “moonshot”, a reference to the US space program aiming for the impossible back in the 1960s, but believes it can be done by creating the “most powerful supercomputer on wheels."James Kuffner, CEO of Toyota Research Institute Advanced Development Inc, or TRI-AD, is the man faced with the task of finding and hiring people with the necessary skills and then getting them not only to develop the software and hardware necessary, but finding ways to vastly reduce the amount such technologies cost. The goal being to produce a car people not only want, but can afford.TRI-AD was established in March, 2018 to help Toyota bridge the gap between theory and showroom floor more quickly. While the program is branded and run by Toyota, you can bet the first vehicles it puts on the road will be wearing a more expensive Lexus badge.Its first goal is to have vehicles that can drive themselves, at least in highway conditions, on Japanese roads by 2020, using a system called 'Highway Teammate'. As futuristic as that date sounds, it’s now less than a year away."The prototypes and the pre-production vehicles that the team is building here at TRI-AD are going to be… the most intelligent supercomputer on wheels," Kuffner told Autonews.com."We've called it the moonshot of my generation to build this technology and bring it to market.”As the name Highway Teammate might suggest, Kuffner is an American and has made his way to Tokyo via Silicon Valley.He’s got quite the budget to play with, too, as Toyota Group suppliers Aisin Seiki and Denso have invested $US2.8 billion into this new division.While we’ve heard about test mules, and even driven, or been driven, in a few before, on Japanese roads and race tracks - an unsettling but fascinating experience - Kuffner is all about turning these experimental vehicles into reality.”If you think about building a research prototype, making a demonstration is pretty easy, but making a product is really hard," Kuffner said."Whenever we talk about our company, we often talk about being a bridge of the prototype to the product.”Advanced prototypes already exist, of course, and they are based on a Lexus LS sedan, which has been turned into a kind of mobile laboratory.Globally, Kuffner admits, there is huge competition to find the best people with the knowledge to create supercomputers on wheels."People actually respond well to our mission," Kuffner said. "I can tell a top-talented software engineer, 'Would you like to write software to sell ads, or would you like to write software to save lives?’ And they'll join us."