Major advances in charging technology are making the electric vehicle (EV) more attractive than ever before. The best example: Direct Current (or DC) “Combo” Fast Charge stations, which are capable of providing an 80 per cent charge to an electric car in just twenty minutes’ time.

This is a major leap forward. Previously, charging four-fifths of an electric vehicle’s battery could take six to eight hours.

The DC technology is being supported by both General Motors and German automaker BMW. GM’s Chevrolet Spark EV and BMW’s i3 will be the first two vehicles to be compatible with the new DC Combo Fast Charge stations.

In fact, in a relatively rare move GM and BMW worked closely together to develop the technology, which is expected to roll out in the coming months.

Brian Gross, GM’s director of Advanced Vehicle Commercialization Policy, says this kind of teamwork is critical if electric vehicles are going to become more attractive for the average consumer.

“This unprecedented cooperation among OEMs and equipment suppliers demonstrates the maturity of this important technology that will help speed the adoption of electric vehicles around the world,” Gross said.

And it’s not just GM and BMW that have committed to this technology. In total, eight prominent automakers — including Ford, Chrysler, Daimler, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, GM, and BMW — have said they’re on board with developing combo fast charge connectors.

Of course, there’s still lots of work ahead for the companies building the world’s next generation of electric vehicles. With charging technology rapidly advancing, these firms will need to continue making strides in improving battery range — meaning fewer charges are necessary.

The post General Motors, BMW Teamwork Cuts EV Charge Time to 20 Minutes appeared first on My Connected Car™.

Hate hunting for parking spots in busy downtown traffic? Audi is hoping to make that painful process a thing of the past. The German automaker recently unveiled its new INRIX Park Service system, which will help drivers find spots quicker and easier than ever before.

Audi showed off the new INRIX system at the Telematics Detroit 2013 conference. INRIX not only shows drivers how to get to about 18,000 parking areas in the United States and 42,000 locations in Europe, but gives them a heads-up on how much each space will cost them.

The service is available right now to anyone with a subscription to Audi connect, the firm’s infotainment system. About 100,000 Audi vehicles use the service, though the automaker is hoping to expand that number with services like INRIX.

INRIX will also be available to buyers of new Audi vehicles.

Audi of America Director of Product Management, Filip Brabec, says it’s all part of Audi’s plan to “ease the challenges that Audi drivers face in their daily drives”.

“By offering the ability to easily navigate to the best parking spot available for their vehicle, Audi has further simplified and improved the ownership experience,” Brabec added.

If embraced by Audi owners INRIX could help prevent accidents and alleviate traffic congestion by keeping drivers focused on where they’re going rather than engaged in an often pointless and frustrating parking spot hunt.

The post Audi’s INRIX System ‘Connects’ Drivers with Open Parking Spaces appeared first on My Connected Car™.

When we hear the term ‘connected car’, we tend to think of vehicles that can communicate with other cars, or allow us to keep in touch with friends, family, and co-workers while out on the road. But the term can also apply to vehicles that are connected to the highway before us.

Take, for example, the new MKZ and MKS sedans from Lincoln. For 2013, both models feature cutting-edge technology designed to make focusing on the road ahead easier than ever before.

First, there’s the Active Noise Canceling feature, which takes outside road noises and counteracts them through special, speaker-emitted sound waves. It’s similar to the technology used in those high-tech headphones you get on noisy airplanes.

Even more exciting is Lincoln’s new anti-pothole feature. Drivers of the new MKZ and slightly larger MKS who hit a pothole won’t need to worry about having their vehicle’s alignment thrown out because these vehicles come equipped with a special sensor that detects when the wheel dips.

The vehicle’s on-board computer instantaneously relays this information to the suspension, which adjusts for the pothole.

Lincoln says its new road-monitoring system constantly analyzes the highway surface, adjusting for hard and soft surfaces every two milliseconds. In fact, the system is so fast that front and back wheels often go over the same surface using different alignment settings.

Lincoln Vehicle Inspection engineer Brian Naspinsky says such a system “is always active, and it underpins the expanded dynamic capabilities of the new MKS.”

The post Lincoln’s ‘Connected’ MKS, MKZ Sedans Adapt to Road Noise, Surface Conditions appeared first on My Connected Car™.

Tesla Motors is working hard to make the all-electric ‘green’ vehicle more appealing to the North American consumer. In fact, the firm says it’s working on a new battery that can go five hundred miles before a recharge.

You might consider Tesla Motors the premier electric vehicle firm. Unlike Chevrolet’s Volt or Nissan’s Leaf, its vehicles aren’t cheap — most start at $60,000 and go up from there.

Nevertheless, the Silicon Valley-based car company is emerging as the premier power in this niche market. During the first quarter of 2013 the firm outsold Chevrolet and Nissan in the electric vehicle market.

In an attempt to distance itself from the competition, Tesla Motors has now set its sights on unveiling a 500-mile electric battery within the next four years. That’s a significant step up from the current 265-mile range available on Tesla’s top-end, all-electric models.

If Tesla keeps to that promise, the firm could nix one of the major criticisms of electric vehicles — that they simply can’t be counted on to ‘go the distance’ when people want to set out on transcontinental road trips.

For his part, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk thinks a 500-mile battery will take care of what is popularly known as “range anxiety.”

In the meantime, Tesla Motors is introducing a new warranty package that allows Tesla owners to drive a new Model S sports car when their own ride is in the shop.

The post Tesla Motors’ All-Electric Vehicles Getting Even ‘Greener’ appeared first on My Connected Car™.

As the number of automotive firms embracing the ‘connected’ car experience increases, the threat posed to these high-tech vehicles by hackers is also rapidly expanding. Thankfully, a number of high-profile automotive companies are working hard to keep connected vehicles safe from hacker attack.

Last month Philadelphia-based security expert George Polgar went public with concerns that cybercriminals could pose a significant threat to drivers of connected cars.

Hackers could “take control of the braking system…the acceleration system, the steering, and various other systems,” Polgar said.

Now, major automakers are going public with their strategies for combating such threats.

First, Ford — which is arguably the world leader in advancing connected car technology — says its engineers are using new “threat modeling” techniques to study how hackers could launch attacks on high-tech vehicles.

“We document the information flows, control boundaries and other elements to determine where we may have issues with things like data integrity, information disclosure, denial of service, escalation of privilege, tampering or spoofing, etc., and then determine one or more mitigation strategies to address the concerns,” Ford recently noted.

Ford also says the high-tech hardware built into its cars comes equipped with a firewall designed to monitor security threats. The firm also says its systems employ key cryptography technology to protect on-board systems from remote infiltration.

Japanese automaker Honda says it’s also aggressively studying security threats to its vehicles. In fact, the firm says it’s cooperating with a number of other automotive firms to ensure that new technologies — including cutting-edge vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems — are not an easy target for hackers.

“As an industry, we have yet to come to a full agreement upon single solution,” Honda recently noted. “But we have made tremendous progress.”

The post World’s Leading Automakers Working to Secure ‘Connected’ Cars Against Cyberattack appeared first on My Connected Car™.

We’ve heard a lot in recent weeks about how the self-driving car could make driving safer, easier, and faster. However, it’s clear we won’t have autonomous vehicles on the road for at least a few years. In the meantime, automotive firms like Infiniti are working on making current vehicles both safer and smarter. Case in point: the new, super-high-tech JX 35 sport utility vehicle.

The JX 35, which is priced between $42,000 and $55,000, is absolutely packed with cutting-edge technology. First, there’s a $3,100 technology package that adds a heated steering wheel, heated and cooled front and back seats, and even a remote engine ignition system.

But it’s the driving and safety features that really set this vehicle apart. First, there’s the JX 35′s Forward Collision Warning (FCW) system, which alerts the drive and even stiffens the seatbelt when the driver approaches another vehicle at a dangerous speed.

There’s also a Lane Departure Warning (LDW) system that alerts a driver if they’ve moved out of their lane without turning on their signal. Finally, there’s a Blind Spot Warning (BSW) system that is designed to alert a driver if another vehicle has snuck into their blind spot when he or she turns on their lane change signal.

And that’s not all — Infiniti is also rolling out new features that bring the driving experience as close as possible to autonomous driving. First, there’s a new Distance Control Assist (DCA) feature that, when initiated, will maintain a safe distance between the JX 35 and the car ahead of it on the road.

Second, there’s a Lane Departure Prevent (LDP) system that can physically stop the vehicle from making a lane change if deemed too dangerous. Third, a Blind Spot Intervention (BPI) system acts much like LDP by preventing the driver from side-swiping a vehicle in their blind spot.

Finally, Infiniti has also connected an eight-inch touchscreen display to a 360-degree camera that, at low speeds, can show a driver everything around the vehicle. There’s even a bird’s-eye-view feature that uses on-board cameras to show a top-down view of the vehicle and any nearby objects.

All of this tech may be a little overwhelming for some drivers, but if carefully studied and mastered could make this the safest and smartest SUV on the road right now.

The post Infiniti’s JX 35 May Be the Smartest SUV in the World appeared first on My Connected Car™.

What kind of impact can we expect self-driving cars to have on our daily commute? Experts now suggest that using such vehicles could dramatically cut the amount of time it takes to get from point A to point B. The reason: autonomous cars could eliminate the red light altogether.

One of the world’s largest test facilities for the self-driving car can be seen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home to the University of Michigan. There, 29 areas have been set aside for experimenting with autonomous driving technology.

Recently, Ann Arbor hosted the Global Symposium on Connected Vehicles and Infrastructure. A major topic of discussion: how such cars will affect traditional traffic infrastructure.

Specifically, some experts say they believe that self-driving vehicles, which will be able to communicate with one another through wireless signals, will also be able to send messages to traffic lights.

That means the activity on the road will have a direct impact on the changing of traffic lights and signals. Initially, that could mean traffic lights respond directly to traffic trends. Eventually, it could significantly reduce the number of times a car halts before a red light.

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the transition won’t be a cheap one and it remains unknown who will pay for such changes.

There are also concerns about how autonomous driving technology will affect the price of the average vehicle. However, Paul Alexander, chief technology officer at Cohda Wireless (which is helping to research autonomous driving technology), believes that, as time goes on, those costs will be steadily reduced.

In fact, Alexander says he believes that car-to-car communication units could cost as little as $100 after a few years of availability.

We’ll know more about these costs and the direction of the automotive industry on self-driving cars when the results of the Ann Arbor study begin to emerge. Unfortunately, it could be six months before that data becomes available.

The post Could Self-Driving Cars Eliminate the Dreaded Red Light? appeared first on My Connected Car™.

Imagine buying a car that doesn’t come equipped with a built-in radio. Sound like a dull drive? Not necessarily. The new Detroit Electric sportscar is phasing out the traditional car stereo, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to listen to your favorite tunes while navigating a winding road.

The new Detroit Electric SP:01 sportscar isn’t actually new at all: instead, it’s a major revival of a car brand first unveiled more than a century ago. The firm says it will only make 999 vehicles available to the public, but plans to unveil two entirely new electric cars in the coming year or so.

Generally speaking, this isn’t your average electric vehicle. The two-seater that resembles a Lotus Elise can reportedly go 180 miles before requiring a recharge, has a top speed of 155 miles per hour, and goes from zero-to-sixty in less than four seconds. That makes it the fastest electric car currently in production.

But speed isn’t the only thing setting the Detroit Electric SP:01 apart: it also boasts a very unique infotainment platform. Called SAMI (Smartphone Application Managed Infotainment), the system provides music, navigation, and battery information not through a central touch screen display, but via the driver’s mobile phone.

This means that drivers will control the radio directly through their smartphones. It also means they can control vehicle settings, like heating, cooling, and lighting, from outside the car.

Detroit Electric says the sound system is no slouch, either — in fact, the SP:01 comes equipped with a built-in amplifier and four speakers.

The SP:01 will be available for purchase this August.

The post Electric Sportscar Replaces In-Car Radio with Driver’s Smartphone appeared first on My Connected Car™.

A.Canada and Insurance Telematics

Ajusto is indeed the second Usage based insurance (UBI) program to launch north of the border, run by Desjardins.  It will start Monday, May 13^th with a behaviour based program that runs off a Telematics device that plugs into your vehicle’s OBD2 port.  The Program allows good drivers to save up to 25% off their auto insurance rates through a combination of factors:

1. Mileage (Kilometers) – up to 10% savings off your total bill

2. Acceleration and Braking – up to a further 10% off your total bill

3. Travel time – up to 15% more off your total bill.

It’s interesting to note that the program does not take into account speed at this time. Perhaps this will come at a later stage when they are able to figure out how to calculate actual speed vs. posted speed limits, that’s possible with exiting technology.

So far we can see Desjardins supporting this campaign with a teaser that started during the week of May 6^th using radio, digital media and social media. It will be interesting to see how they communicate it over the coming weeks.  This is a big issue because there is no company like “Progressive” building the UBI category in Canada. Marketing communications will be a key to success.

To learn more about Ajusto, visit the following webpage: http://www.desjardinsassurancesgenerales.com/d-on/en/insurance-products/auto-insurance/pages/auto-insurance-program.aspx?campagne=SF700000

B. United States and Insurance Telematics

This past week was also an exciting time for UBI in the United States because Travelers launched the second only program to use television to support its Intellidrive campaign in the key States where it is supported. Up until now Progressive has been the only television advertiser and it has enjoyed the benefit of controlling the dialogue around price.

To see the new Travelers commercial, please visit: http://youtu.be/C4c5xLsJH-E

To learn more about Intellidrive please visit: https://www.travelers.com/personal-insurance/auto-insurance/discounts-advantages/low-mileage-discount.aspx

C. Implications and Indicated Action

These two initiatives will spark a lot of discussion and action on both sides of the border.  For Canadian insurance carriers the Desjardins campaign will likely accelerate and potentially advance their plans to enter the UBI space with trial and pilot programs.

For American insurance carriers, Travelers move to take its pilot programs, upgrade these to commercial rollouts and to do so by segmenting low mileage drivers, will initiate a segmentation discussion south of the border.  The big brands will increasingly move to define territories they can own and I think you’ll see programs for Young Driver, Mature Drivers, Small Fleets, and potentially “Non standard” campaigns emerging.

Further information

For more information on UBI, IMS is offering a deeper dive in two forms:

• For US insurers and those quite familiar with UBI: IMS UBI Webcast –available for viewing by clicking here.
• For Canadian insurers and those companies new to UBI: IMS UBI Boot Camp – you can be a boot camp member registering here.

The post The Insurance Telematics market is indeed accelerating in Canada and the United States. appeared first on My Connected Car™.

Speaking at the recent Connected Car Symposium held by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, United States Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood noted the benefits of developing ‘connected’ car technology.

“We know it’s going to save lives,” LaHood said. “We know this technology is going to help people avoid accidents. We know this technology is going to save injuries.”

However, LaHood also noted that the connected car revolution faces substantial obstacles. In fact, LaHood indicated that it will be a significant challenge for automakers to implement smarter safety systems without breaking the bank.

“It will be up to the carmakers to help us figure out what the cost is going to be,” noted LaHood, who added that, to date, cost hasn’t yet been a factor carefully considered by automotive firms.

“Cost hasn’t really been a factor at this point,” LaHood noted. “But, ultimately, it will be. We know people make a judgment on what car to buy based on cost.”

For the time being, the federal government is willing to offer funding to help with the development of connected car research. Ann Arbor City Council recently voted to accept more than $600,000 in new federal grant funds for the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, which continues to carry out studies on vehicles equipped with technology that allows them to communicate with one another.

That’s just one part of a massive $15 million grant awarded to UMTRI.

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