Samsung ties robot-car efforts into Harman after $8 billion deal

Bloomberg

Samsung Electronics Co. is upping its $8 billion bet on automotive technology, forming a separate business unit within Harman to house autonomous driving products and plowing $300 million into a new fund investing in startups in the space.
The autonomous driving unit will compete on everything from driving algorithms to systems integration, Dinesh Paliwal, Harman’s chief executive officer, said in a phone interview. That will include an advanced-driver assistance platform with open software that allows outside engineers to build products off of it—a shot at Mobileye, which was acquired by Intel Corp. this year in a move that mirrored Samsung’s automotive leap.
“Our industry is literally screaming, saying, ‘We love Mobileye but we need an open platform,”’ Paliwal said. “Competition is the best thing ever. The auto industry wants us to do it and we think we have the capacity and the fuel power.”
The South Korean smartphone maker, which snapped up US-based Harman International Industries Inc. last year for $8 billion to elbow its way into the hotly contested market for automotive tech, is betting it can marry its consumer electronics expertise with
Harman’s presence in dashboards all over the world. If it works, it will be able to offer carmakers a lightning-quick connected system for infotainment, mapping, concierge services and autonomous driving—without the competitive anxieties other tech giants like Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google tend to arouse.
Startup Fund
John Absmeier, vice president of smart machines for the Samsung Strategy & Innovation Center and former director of Delphi Automotive Plc’s autonomous vehicle project in Silicon Valley, will lead the new unit, announced at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
To further access to new tech, Samsung is also creating a fund to invest in an array of technologies needed to enable self-driving and connected cars, from sensors and machine vision to artificial intelligence and security. The fund’s first strategic investment will be in TTTech, a safety-controls developer for autonomous systems.
Announcing the unit, Samsung was careful to note that it won’t enter the car-manufacturing business, positioning itself as non-threatening ally to automakers.

Waymo CEO says self-driving trucks may come before taxis
Bloomberg

Alphabet Inc.’s driverless vehicle technology may come to market first in trucks, rather than as an autonomous ride-sharing service. John Krafcik, CEO of Alphabet’s Waymo division, said he’s exploring two paths for its self-driving systems and software.
“Ride-sharing makes a lot of sense for the world,” he said at a Bloomberg’s conference in New York. “For goods transportation, which could travel primarily on highways, there’s a good and compelling use-case there, too. Either of those two might be the first ones you see.”
Krafcik has noted the company is looking at logistics and delivery models, but he has not shared details on its plans for a trucking or goods transit service. Waymo has confirmed that it owns one truck it is testing with self-driving software and sensors. The Alphabet arm started a small ride-sharing trial earlier outside Phoenix, inviting hundreds of people to hail its self-driving minivans using a mobile app.

Munich Re enlists Mobileye to navigate driverless car threat
Bloomberg

Auto insurers, faced with rising accident rates and the emergence of autonomous vehicles that could make them obsolete by removing human error, have reason to love and hate driverless technology. Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, has decided to embrace it.
The company will sell Mobileye’s driver-assistance tech as an aftermarket add-on to commercial fleets starting this month. It’s targeting a market of about 500,000 vehicles, from garbage trucks to ride-share cars, with a bid to curb collisions and collect data in preparation for the self-driving autos.
“What we’re looking to do here is work with our clients to help them understand the key loss drivers within their auto portfolio, and help identify which types of losses are preventable,” said Mike Scrudato, Munich Re’s US strategic innovation leader.