The Future of Automotive From the Motor City -April 19th

By James Salter

Teleca wrapped up an interesting week in Detroit for the annual SAE 2011 World Congress (Society of Automotive Engineers) conference April 12-14. While the automotive industry and the Detroit area have both taken their lumps in the past few years, there is renewed optimism on all fronts. SAE 2011 was better attended than last year and most of the big automakers were present with large booths.

The main focus of the event was on new technologies: hybrid and electric vehicles and new dashboard displays dominated many of the booths. Most of the big automakers will be releasing pure electric cars in the next year or so if they already don’t offer one. A good number of engineers who visited the Teleca booth were very interested in our talents with the Android platform as proprietary closed systems are getting replaced. This will pose some interesting opportunities for the industry as it demands a set of standards for in-vehicle technologies.

How will start-up times be met with increasing functionalities added over time for these dashboard systems? Will the OEMs allow for mobile applications onto their own infotainment units or set up their own Android storefronts? Whatever the answers, it is clear that the industry requires partnering with new players that understand the industry, the hardware to software connectivity issues and the different open source or standardized platforms to choose from.

A final thanks to the GENIVI Alliance. Teleca team members had a great time at the dinner networking event hosted by GENIVI on April 13^th. The event allowed members to showcase their demos and discuss the alliance's achievements and membership benefits. Teleca was able to demonstrate Meego on a Freescale unit with touchscreen functionality. Look for more exciting demonstrations of Teleca’s expertise in automotive at the upcoming GENIVI all members meeting in Dublin, Ireland on May 4-6 and at the Telematics Update 2011 on June 8-9 in Novi, MI.