March 07, 2024 - At this year’s Continental Annual Press Conference, our Automotive Group Sector was represented with several technologies and innovations that are of key focus for the company. It is also notable that the overall performance of the sector has improved when compared to the previous year, with higher order intake playing a significant role in this direction. A main factor for this enhanced order intake is due to the exclusive partnership with Auror for delivery of the first commercially scalable generation of Aurora’s flagship integrated hardware and software system, the Aurora Driver, for autonomous trucking.
Partnerships, Innovations at the helm of focus for Continental Automotive
This partnership will become the first hardware-as-a-service business model ever in the industry, as well as the world’s first serviceable automotive-grade autonomous system at scale. While Continental will build initial versions of the hardware for testing by 2024-25, the start of production of the final product is expected to be in 2027. This innovation is set to result in increased safety, reduced fuel consumption and quicker delivery times for truck transportation across the U.S. to begin with.
The next innovation is the result of Continental’s partnership with Google Cloud for a new era of personalized travel where users follow the theme of “Talking instead of Typing.” The companies have joined forces to seamless integrate Google Cloud’s conversational and generative AI into our Smart Cockpit High-Performance Computer (HPC), which enables a natural and intuitive interaction between the user and assistant.
Another highlight, which is also a result of a partnership, is the development of the wheel hub drive with integrated brake, in association with DeepDrive. While this strategic partnership is to develop core technologies for electric vehicles, the first project will be in the joint development of a combined unit comprising drive and brake components that mounting directly on the vehicle wheel. This integrated drive unit will become a new component that can revolutionize vehicle electrification.
Near-field projection is another highlight innovation, which is a new system development for generating dynamic projections near a vehicle. This is a compact, powerful projection module based on micro-LEDs that provide increased safety in the immediate vicinity of a vehicle and hence has the potential to reduce the number of accidents involving injuries. This solution is especially easy to integrate into a vehicle due to its compact size of a cube measuring only five centimeters on a side, enclosing power supply, graphics processing unit and micro-LED module.
The final two technologies showcased are both world-premieres for Continental. They consist of Crystal Center Display, the first-ever automotive display in Swarovski Crystal for premium vehicles. The Crystal Center Display features a unique construction with a frameless and semi-transparent look, and has also been awarded as a CES 2024 Innovation Award Honoree for outstanding product design. The other innovation is our Face Authentication Display access control system, which integrates face authentication invisibly behind driver display console. This two-stage access control system is based on biometric user recognition that uses special camera systems mounted externally on the vehicle’s B-pillar and invisibly behind the driver display console.
We also highlighted out AI Lab in Berlin, which will provide ideal framework and conditions for application-independent development for autonomous driving and robotics beyond our current boundaries. Our AI Lab brings together experts from a wide range of corporate divisions to work on technologies including Computer Vision (machine vision), Hybrid AI (combination of machine learning with conventional software programs), or Automated Data Labelling (marking objects in images).
