The discussion covers advancements in automotive sensor placement, highlighting Gentex's integration of thermal cameras in rearview mirrors to meet upcoming EU and NHTSA mandates for improved night-time pedestrian detection. The episode also explores the growing interest in 48V electrical systems beyond Tesla, including multi-voltage batteries and ultracapacitors from Clarios. Emerging mobility concepts like vertical takeoff and landing aircraft are gaining traction with automakers and suppliers. Additionally, Magna's sensor fusion technology aims to predict accidents milliseconds ahead, while Tremic develops high-performance electric drive units. The episode touches on shifting vehicle import trends in China and legacy suppliers adapting to EV markets.
Topics:thermal camerasdriver monitoring systemsautomated emergency braking48v electrical systemsvertical takeoff and landing aircraftsensor fusionchina vehicle importshigh performance ev drive unitslegacy suppliers transitioning to evultracapacitors
- Rear View Mirrors Perfect Spot for Driver Monitor Tech - Thermal Cameras Needed to Meet New NHTSA Mandate - Suppliers Now Getting Involved with VTOLs - Tesla Not the Only One Developing 48V Systems - Magna Developing System to Predict Accidents - China Car Imports Drop Dramatically - Tremec Develops Powerful EV Drive Unit
"...ns for high performance models like Corvettes and Mustangs, developed a drive unit for high performance evs...."
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This is Auto Line Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Automakers are adding cameras, microphones, and other sensors on cars,
but where's the best place to put them? Gentechs, which makes rear view
mirrors, says that the inside rear view mirror is the perfect place that puts everything in the driver's line of site, and they can easily be installed on the assembly line in one operation. In twenty twenty six, the European Union
is mandating driver monitoring systems, and Gentex says it can incorporate all that into the rearview mirror. Gentex is also working with the Israeli company add a Sky
to add thermal cameras for automated emergency braking, since most AEB systems don't do very well at night or in bad weather. In the US, NITZA says
that seventy five percent of pedestrian fatalities happen at night. Currently, NITZA mandates
that AEB cameras have to see in two thousand lucks, which is a measurement of illumination and is the equivalent of daylight. But NITZA is going to drop
that to only point two lucks, which means those cameras have to see in the dark, and that means automakers will need to use thermal cameras. Addiski
claims to have the smallest thermal camera available and says it already has an order for them from a Detroit based automaker, which means it's either GM or Ford vtalls or vertical takeoff and landing aircraft could be the next big thing in mobility.
Automakers such as Honda, Honda, Mercedes, and General Motors have all expressed an interest in getting involved, and so has the supplier Scheffler, which makes the electric motor for a V tall developed by an Austrian company called fly Now. It's a one passenger battery powered electric tall with enough room behind the
passenger seat for a roll on luggage, or it can be configured to carry a small palette of cargo, and it's designed for wireless charging so that the V tall just has to land on an induction pad to recharge the battery.
Tesla already announced that it's next generation car, which some people are calling the Model two, will use a forty eight volt system for low voltage applications.
But Tesla isn't the only one. Clarios, which is the world's largest lead
acid battery maker, says it's working with other OEMs to come out with forty eight volt systems too. In fact, it's working on what are called multi
output voltage batteries, where one battery can be used for twelve, twenty four or forty eight volt systems, and Clarios is moving well beyond lead acid as well. It already has LFP and LTO batteries or lithium titanium oxide, and
it's also working with an unnamed partner to develop sodium ion batteries for low voltage applications. And it thinks that ultracapacitors are going to play a role in situations
where a car needs a quick burst of energy, like when adaptive suspension needs to keep a car flat while cornering. It's one thing for a car to
activate the brakes, change the steering, or trigger the airbags once something happens.
But what if a car could predict what's going to happen before it tries to avoid an accident or protect the passengers, Then it could react even faster.
And that's why Magna is working on a system that relies on sensor fusion to predict three hundred milliseconds ahead of anything that's happening. Walter Sackle, a
senior director at Magna, says, sensors are reliable, but they can't predict what's going to happen. Cameras can see what's going to happen, but they're
not one hundred percent reliable, and info from the cloud can help, but it's also not one hundred percent reliable. Even so, he says, when
you fuse all those different systems together, you can reliably predict what's going to happen. We've reported on how China became the biggest exporter of vehicles this year,
but now car imports to China are plunging. In twenty seventeen, China
imported nearly one point three million vehicles. Last year, that dropped to eight
hundred and eighty thousand units, and in the first half of this year it was only three hundred and thirty eight thousand, a twenty three percent drop.
Part of the reason is more automakers have moved production to China. Another is
that the government is really incentivizing evs, and just about no one exports evs to China. Over half the imports are SUVs and ninety percent of the imports
are from luxury brands, which suggest that Mercedes, BMW and Audie are losing the most in China. And here's another example of a legacy supplier transitioning to
the EV world. Tremic, which is known for building transmissions for high performance
models like Corvettes and Mustangs, developed a drive unit for high performance evs.
The two motor unit weighs two hundred and forty three pounds and produces six hundred kilowatts or about eight hundred horsepower. It's even compact enough to fit in the
same space as a single rear drive motor like the one in the Mustang Mache, which weighs about the same but produces less than half of the power.
Tremic plans to introduce the drive unit in twenty twenty four twenty twenty five, but only for low volume specialty vehicles. It wants to ramp up to ten
thousand units per year by twenty twenty eight. In a quick programming note before
I sign off, there will not be a new Autoline after hours this afternoon, but that's it for today's show. Thanks for making Autoline daily part of
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