Robo-Cars Need Relationship Map 2017-03-29
Even if it doesn’t quite rival the messy relationships in a daytime soap opera, autonomous vehicle partnerships are definitely part of a tangled web.
The Daimler – Bosch deal announced earlier this week, however, has brought some clarity. Daimler and Bosch said Tuesday ([**]pril 4) that they’re partnering to accelerate the production of "robo-taxis.”
The real significance of the news, however, is that all three -- Daimler, Mercedes Benz (owned by Daimler) and Tier One Robert Bosch -- have chosen Nvidia as their autonomous driving platform partner.
Mobileye vs. Nvidia
In fact, when it comes to the platform battle over Level 4 and Level 5 cars, the automotive industry today is split in two: you are either with Mobileye (soon to be part of Intel), or with Nvidia.
[**]nd Nvidia has clearly shown it is gaining momentum.
[**]sked about the Damiler-Bosch announcement, Phil Magney, founder & principal advisor at Vision Systems Intelligence, told us that Daimler must be “encouraged with Nvidia’s roadmap for both [**]I and solutions for highly automated driving.” Notably, Mercedes announced a plan to develop [**]I-based self-driving capabilities with Nvidia even before the Daimler-Bosch partnerhips happened, he explained.
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![Relationship Map among chip vendors, tech companies, Tier > <div style=]()
Relationship Map among chip vendors, tech companies, Tier Ones and car OEMs (Source: EE Times)
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On the other hand, an opposing camp built around the BMW/Intel/Mobileye alliance was announced last summer. Last month Intel announced the acquisition of Mobileye. Separately, Intel and Mobileye last year picked up Tier One Delphi as their partner.
Especially in recent months, among high-profile autonomous car development announcements with prestigious German car manufacturers, Nvidia is stealing Mobileye’s thunder.
But look closely, said Egil Juliussen, director research, infotainment & [**]D[**]S at?IHS?[**]utomotive. Mobileye might be “way ahead of Nvidia,” when considering the number of OEMs and Tier Ones already deeply aligned with Mobileye.
What Mobileye's annual report tells us
?Juliussen is referring to Mobileye’s unprecedented dominance in the [**]D[**]S market. The company has an almost unfair advantage when it comes to the installed base of the company’s computer vision modules. [**]ccording to Mobileye’s Form 20-F SEC filing, Mobileye's modules are “installed in approximately 15.7 million vehicles worldwide through December 31, 2016.”
Mobileye said, “Our technology is available with 21 OEMs. Furthermore, our products have been selected for implementation with more than 25 OEMs.”
But of course, this is all [**]D[**]S. [**] big question, said Juliussen, is “whether Mobileye can transfer their relationships to the autonomous vehicle platform.”
Mobileye’s SEC filing, however, indicates that they are not doing badly in coming design wins. The company has design-wins from five OEMs for Level 3 autonomous driving in the pipeline. It also has wins from five OEMs for Level 4 autonomous driving.
Many auto industry observers believe Mobileye can effectively convert from [**]D[**]S to autonomous vehicle design.
Part of the reason is that the Israeli team hasn’t stopped innovating. The Mobileye team, now a division of Intel, led by [**]mnon Shashua, a computer science professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, co-founder and CTO at Mobileye, has been already put lots of resources into developing substantive technology components that go way beyond [**]D[**]S.
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![[**]mnon Shashua, co-founder and CTO of Mobileye](res/201704/08/auto_96.png)
[**]mnon Shashua, co-founder and CTO of Mobileye
When Intel announced the acquisition of Mobileye, Magney observed, “I think Intel believes Mobileye’s team is further along in the development, not only vision but other technologies like behavior (Driving Policy) and localization (REM).”
[**]ccording to Mobileye, REM is “is an end-to-end mapping and localization engine for full autonomy.”
The solution consists of three layers: harvesting agents (any camera-equipped vehicle), map aggregating server (cloud), and map-consuming agents (autonomous vehicle).??
Considering the plethora of camera modules already installed in the “harvesting agents,” Mobileye has a lot to gain by promoting REM. [**]nd the company is making sure that those OEMs who are already hooked on Mobileye’s computer vision modules feel the same way. Data collected by these “harvesting agents” is paving the way for the eventual BMW/Intel/Mobileye autonomous vehicle platform to succeed on the road.
Multiple development programs
?It’s hard to predict, however, whether these publicly announced partnerships will stay intact in the long run. Some car OEMs might simply want something quick so they can show a cool autonomous car demo on the road by 2020 — as promised —??with little intention to make money from it.
While others might be gunning for autonomous vehicles, they feel pressed to explore a new “robo-taxi” business model.
Magney explained, “Urban mobility platforms probably represent the best ROI in the near term because the business models for shared mobility are so well established.” He said, “Furthermore, these vehicles allow their makers to deploy within a ‘somewhat’ constrained environment compared to full L5 automation anywhere.”
It’s also important to note that vehicles deployed for these applications will have “a heavy [**]V ([**]utomated Vehicle) Stack. Very costly, multiple redundancies, fail safe, lots of data collection and OT[**] (Over the [**]ir) capabilities,” as Magney noted.
This is good for gaining experience but the danger is an autonomous vehicle that ends up as a science project with little practical value.
Meanwhile, car OEMs are known to run multiple development programs in parallel. Consider Mercedes.? Before its parent Daimler decided to partner with Bosch, Mercedes-Benz reportedly had two engineering teams working on autonomous vehicles. Reuters reported, “One took an evolutionary approach, upgrading the capabilities of conventional vehicles, while the other team took a more radical approach to the car's design.”
Magney believes it likely, given especially at this stage, “they have to examine different approaches.”
Who’s in bed with whom
?[**]s Juliussen said, there’s the BMW/Intel/Mobileye group. [**]s Mobileye’s SEC filing indicates, this group has signed up at least five OEMs for Level 4 cars, he explained.
Then, there’s the Nvidia’s platform. Besides [**]udi and Daimler, Nvidia has partnered with both Bosch and ZF – two Tier Ones. “They are significant,” said Juliussen, because they can get more automotive OEMs.
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