Automotive IT News and Facts
The production prototype of a street-legal airplane completed its first successful flight, raising the possibility that cars will one day fly – or airplanes will become a regular feature on the world’s roads. The US based Terrafugia company said its Transition Street-Legal Airplane has also successfully conducted initial drive and conversion testing. The Transition is [...]
IBM, aiming to show how electric vehicles can interact with the power grid, has teamed up with Japanese carmaker Honda and US utility Pacific Gas and Electric in a pilot project to demonstrate the possibilities for individualized EV charging plans. The project will test how EVs can receive and respond to charge instructions based on [...]
Carmakers are increasing their efforts to improve car connectivity through the introduction of LTE. The new standard, which is set to increase the speed and capacity of mobile communications, is still in the trial phase in most countries. But experts expect the new mobile communication network to be fully operational in major markets within two [...]
Germany’s IT lobby warns that plans for a Europe-wide tightening of credit regulation under the so-called “Basel III” rules will negatively affect many small and medium-sized IT companies. The European Union is currently discussing new rules that would force banks to increase reserves held against the loans they offer. That would lead to more restrictive [...]
BMW unveiled a fourth new model in its “i” range, underscoring the carmaker’s intentions to expand the new brand it is officially launching next year. The BMW i8 Concept Spyder is a plug-in hybrid powered by an electric motor and a gasoline combustion engine which, together, provide a combined output of up to 354 bhp. [...]
Volkmar Denner, a Robert Bosch board member, will succeed Franz Fehrenbach as CEO of the world’s largest automotive supplier July 1. Denner, 55, is currently board member in charge of corporate research and advance engineering, product planning and technology coordination. In addition, he oversees Bosch’s automotive electronics and car multimedia divisions. Fehrenbach, who has been [...]
Companies in emerging markets are leading the way when it comes to adoption Cloud-based application, according to a survey conducted by Tata Consulting Services. The US and Europe remain conservative about putting mission-critical and customer data in the Cloud, the survey of 606 managers in global companies with sales of more than 1 billion dlrs [...]
The auto industry should better manage its use of free and open source software (FOSS), according to a recently published study by consultants BearingPoint. The industry is a big user of open source software, which is relatively inexpensive, easy to customize and doesn’t lock a company into one particular vendor. But according to a BearingPoint [...]
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche this week reaffirmed the premium car maker’s commitment to new connected-vehicle technology across its product range. “Soon you will not be able to make money anymore with cars that don’t integrate customers’ smartphones,” Zetsche said at a technical conference hosted by Germany’s auto industry association (VDA). This is particularly true when [...]
Volkswagen has launched a new company-wide IT academy in a move to give greater in-house prominence to the role of information technology in meeting its corporate goals. “IT is the nerve center of our company,” said VW personnel chief Horst Neumann. “Superbly qualified IT staff are therefore a precondition for doing business in an efficient, [...]
