CES 2019 REVIEW

LAS VEGAS LEAVING

INNOVATORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD GATHERED AT LAS VEGAS FOR CES 2019 TO SHARE THEIR MEGATREND CONTRIBUTIONS, BUT IT WAS DEVELOPMENTS IN ROAD SAFETY, URBAN MOBILITY AND A FUTURISTIC LAST MILE VISION THAT STOLE THE SHOW.

The 2019 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held at the Las Vegas Convention Center in January, brought innovative road transport concepts – among other brilliant ideas – to a mainstream audience. The hosts of the event, Consumer Technology Association (CTA), were adamant that keynote speaker and US Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, was leading the Administration’s efforts to realise the promise of transportation technology and innovation (including self-driving vehicles and piloted/remotecontrol drones) while ensuring public safety.

One of the most prominent road safety innovations presented at the show was the announcement of the Valeo XtraVue trailer – a system that offers driving assistance for trailer and caravan users. It uses video images captured from cameras located at the rear of both the vehicle and trailer/caravan, combining them into a single homogeneous image that renders the trailer invisible, enabling the vehicle operator to see behind what would normally be obstructed.

Gilles Elmoznino, Valeo Media Relations, confirmed that the manufacturer has produced 10 million ADAS sensors between 1991 to 2015 and plan to produce another 10 billion between 2015 and 2023.

“Sensor technology has changed over the years to be more precise, jumping in quality from a quarter VGA to 20 megapixels,” he says. “The Valeo sensor portfolio is the widest in the automotive industry to cover these specific applications while ensuring the necessary safety requirements. Valeo is the only company to use Scanner LIDAR in serial production.”

The Valeo XtraVue Trailer is still in development with a contract with a major OEM, according to Elmoznino. He adds that the technology is not region specific in regards to market launch.

Elmoznino says the XtraVue Trailer systems works with two cameras. “The standard rear camera from the vehicle and an additional one mounted on the trailer. The system also uses an image stitching controller and the standard centre stack screen, too.”

The process for installing this system seems quite straightforward, with self-calibration capabilities after a few manoeuvres. Valeo stresses that this technology puts safety and convenience first, ensuring greater productivity for fleets as well.

Since presenting this innovation at CES, Valeo has received a lot of positive feedback as well as interesting connections with startup enterprises.

Following safety innovations, there were also demonstrations of what the last mile might look like in the near distant future. Technology company, Continental, is steadily pushing the boundaries of autonomous vehicle technology, exploring new use cases and advances every day. At

The disappearing trailer.

A glimpse of a robot-delivery future.

CES 2019, Continental demonstrated how a driverless vehicle could be used to stage and deploy delivery robots, taking packages all the way to the consumer.

The seamless integration of a driverless vehicle – in this case, the Continental Urban Mobility Experience (CUbE) – and a delivery robot present a more effective and efficient distribution of goods. The CUbE, Continental’s autonomous electrified development platform, is generally considered as a solution for urban ‘first or last mile’ mobility. This type of vehicle – often referred to as a robo-taxi or pod – will be a part of the seamless mobility value chain. The purpose of these vehicles will be extended to goods delivery to further utilise the available transport capacity and minimise downtime.

Market estimations show that the need to transport goods will even outpace the strongly growing need for people transport in densely populated areas. With expertise in scalable technologies and solutions like sensors, environment perception and modelling, localisation, positioning, situation analysis, decision making and mechatronic actuators, Continental supposedly has the solutions and know-how to address this need.

“With the help of robot delivery, Continental’s vision for seamless mobility can extend right to your doorstep,” according to Continental Head of Systems & Technology – Chassis & Safety Division, Ralph Lauxmann.

“Our vision of cascaded robot delivery leverages a driverless vehicle to carry delivery robots, creating an efficient transport team. “Both are electrified, both are autonomous and, in principle, both can be based on the same scalable technology portfolio. These synergies create an exciting potential for holistic delivery concepts using similar solutions for different platforms. Beyond this technology foundation, it’s reasonable to expect a whole value chain to develop in this area.”

Driverless vehicles, in this context, offer a smart solution the meet the challenges of urban mobility. Goods and parcel delivery to residential areas, for instance, is a growing and dynamic market, driven by e-commerce sales that are increasing every year. With the growth of this segment, delivery cost per hour is gaining importance. This positions last mile and delivery services as a differentiator. Automated goods delivery is forecasted to provide an answer for up to 80 percent of all business-to-consumer deliveries, according to Continental.

The technology company views automated goods delivery as an integral part of future urban mobility as an addition to conventional goods delivery. The CUbE can carry one or multiple delivery robots and deploy them to handle the last yards of the goods and parcel delivery logistics chain.

“Industrialising the automation of goods delivery requires reliable, robust, highperforming and best-cost technology – a mix perfectly reflected in the automotive equivalent of automation,” Lauxmann says. “It is this very profile of expertise that has made Continental one of the industryleading suppliers of advanced driver assistance systems and vehicle automation.”

With existing delivery robots serving as a development platform, Continental claims to be ready to transfer and scale automotive technology to meet robot manufacturers’ requirements.

Continental North America Director of Systems & Technology, Jeremy McClain, believes that the challenges to a delivery robot parallel what we already see in automated vehicles.

“Delivery robots will require technology that is just as advanced and robust as our automotive solutions,” he says. “With the ever-increasing popularity of online shopping and the growth of megacities, unique solutions for package delivery will be needed. Driverless vehicles combined with delivery robots could be the perfect answer.”

Continental posits that driverless vehicles will represent a vital element in the Smart Cities of the future. They are considered by many experts as a key element of future mobility concepts to solve the challenges of the urbanisation. A driverless vehicle can be in use almost 24/7. Innovative city planners see driverless vehicles as a valuable addition to public mass transport by eliminating the need for a privately-owned car to get to the nearest point of access to other means of transport.

“There will be peaks in demand for driverless vehicles during the day,” McClain says. “To make use of driverless vehicles outside those peak ‘rush’ hours is where robot-delivery comes in. We see great potential in our automotive technology to support robotics companies in developing autonomous delivery robots as an additional use case for driverless vehicles.” www.ces.tech

HUGE SAVI NGS NEW DEVELOPMENTS MEAN

A RECENT SURVEY BY THE GERMAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (GCCI) CONCLUDES THAT THE GLOBAL TRANSPORT WORLD WILL SEE NOT ONLY A PROFOUND TECH REVOLUTION, IT SHOULD ALSO PREPARE FOR HUGE COST SAVINGS, EVEN THOUGH THE SURVEY WAS WRITTEN FROM A GERMAN PERSPECTIVE. [ Story by Tim de Jong ]

What immediately stands out in the GCCI survey is the year 2030, which is considered to be a true turning point. Global Trailer heard similar sounds at last year’s IAA Commercial Vehicles Show, but from a completely different source. There, commercial vehicle manufacturer, Iveco, said it expected that LNG trucks would enjoy strong growth, and that from 2030, hydrogen trucks would become a serious alternative.

The sources in the German study, mostly executed by KE Consulting of Cologne, expect that autonomous trucks (Level 4) won’t be on our roads en masse by 2030. At best, trucks might be equipped with Level 3 technology, which hardly differs from Level 2, which we saw recently on the new Freightliner Cascadia, and last September on the new Mercedes Actros. On long motorwaystraights these trucks can take over from their driver. However, perfect internet capability, preferably 5G, is required, and it became clear only recently that this is still a problem, most specifically in Germany. Driverless driving, which is known as Level 5 autonomous technology, is not to be expected to be possible at all 11 years from now. However, with first steps being taken on the road to autonomous technology, huge savings are to be expected.

According to researchers at KE Consult from Cologne, Germany alone stands to accrue billions in savings. The researchers refer to savings in costs as well as in CO2 output. KE Consult calculated that Germany will be able to save 8.3 billion euros by the year 2030, provided that Level 3 trucking will be seriously on its way by that time, compared to the current road transport cost levels. CO2 output will be reduced by some 6.2 billion tonnes, they predict. In the long term, when driving without a driver will have become mainstream, savings would even

HUGE SAVI NGS NEW DEVELOPMENTS MEAN

double to levels of up to 15 billion euros.

The most obvious effect of new technology for road transport equipment will be that significantly less fuel will be needed. Already when we look at platooning, that is undergoing several tests in various countries, a saving of 10 per cent maximum is within reach. Should passenger car traffic go into a smoother flow as well, following from platooning trucks, savings will be really significant, according to the Germans, even when this happens on B-roads.

KE Consult expects the German fuel bill to drop by a whopping 30 per cent. When we reach Level 5 autonomous trucking, trucks can be operated without a driver, and savings amount to 30 eurocents per kilometre, KE Consult expects. Of course, we’re not there yet. But even if only 10 per cent of German trucks were to be operated autonomously, the German transport business alone would book cost savings amounting to around 2.5 billion euros. KE Consult stresses that this a conservative estimate. There are also scenarios calculating savings of 60 per cent compared to current costs in road transport.

The Germans also expect to develop optimisation for regular traffic. A decrease in congestion will follow from it. Expected gains in time on motorways will add up to 20 per cent and on secondary roads to 15 per cent, KE Consult estimates. Maybethis sounds a bit optimistic, taking into consideration the numerous roadworks the Germans are infamous for, but it is a significant effect when it leads to lower accident rates. The theory sounds very logical, but a precondition here, again, is

KE Consult expects the German fuel bill to drop by a whopping 30 per cent.

that systems have to work flawlessly, permanently. Still, KE Consult estimates that 10 per cent fewer lethal accidents is realistic. This would save a whopping 5.7 billion euros in medical costs. Cities will be easier to reach and at the same time, they will need fewer parking spaces. Another effect would be that people will sort of rediscover older cars that still require people with an old-fashioned drivers license, just for the fun of it. KE Consult also expects more people to prefer public transport over possibly owning a car, as commuting in a world full of autonomous cars and trucks is not that different from a train journey. A disadvantage the report hardly touches on is the need to work with safe technology, which can never be prone to hacking.

It’s obvious that future vehicles stuffed with autonomous technology will be quite expensive. However, the total cost of ownership will become much cheaper. This cost advantage increases when annual mileages are relatively high, also taking into account drivers costs. The authors of the survey quote a Roland Berger survey, which investigated platooning in the US. There, the investigators expected a fuel cost reduction of five per cent by 2030 and double that 10 years later. By 2040 the number of traffic accidents will have reduced by 40 per cent in the US, according to Roland Berger. There as well, fewer traffic jams are expected because of a better traffic flow. This is also one of the effects the Dutch road traffic bodies are investigating.

Apart from Roland Berger, KE Consult also used similar surveys from McKinsey and PwC. They predict cost savings of 28 to 35%, also mainly in fuel and driving personnel. Other cost components contribute very modestly to the new era of autonomous driving. KE Consult also quotes a survey by the International Transport Forum (ITF). Here, four scenarios were calculated concerning the implementation of autonomous driving. The conservative scenario doesn’t expect autonomous traffic in the first two decades to come, while the most progressive one expects serious changes within three years from now. In all four cases, savings appear to be huge.

The question remains in what timeframe a driver’s directive will be no longer relevant, as the role of what we now know as ‘the driver’ will change profoundly. When trucks can be operated 24/7, vehicle parks will become much smaller. Working days change when trucks no longer have to stop to rest the driver. The great majority of current drivers is expected to be no longer needed when Level 5 is reached. Also in private transport, there will be huge consequences following from the radical changes in vehicles technology in the upcoming decades. www.globaltrailermag.com

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1ST - 3RD APRIL 2020 MELBOURNE CONVENTION & EXHIBITION CENTRE