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2 00:00:07,410 --> 00:00:10,550 John Walls: Of course, we all know that automobile transportation is about being mobile
what about mobile in the auto, literally? What's happening these days in terms of
wireless communication? Here with me to talk about that is Liz Kerton
Who is executive director at the Autotech Council, Liz thanks for
being with us, here, so what is going on in terms of how advanced are we
and safety applications in the vehicles these days and kind of
we're do you think we're going Liz Kerton: Wow safety is such an important part
of the car and all of the decisions that the car manufactures make have that
kind of safety firewall on it. It's imperative that any application
any technology, any sensors that are going into the car meet the safety
and distracted driving requirements of the car OEM, so
those are the deal breakers either way and the car OEM that
will make that decision right up front. You can bring them a nice
app that has too many buttons for the dashboard and they'll write you off right
away. Those buttons are too small, they're in the wrong place
I need a yes and no button and that's it. Walls: And the development community hears that message
Kerton: They do and part of the way around it is in some cases
there's a difference between what we call tethered car
and embedded, so a tethered car would be I come in with my phone
I plug it in and I get a nice display on the dash and I get all my app for my
phone right into my car, that's tethering
for the internet service will be used from AT&T by the driver. The other is
embedded, so the car has its own internet connection and
your car, it's charging you ten dollars a month to connect to the
wireless network.
In the embedded situation the car company has all of the control
over the apps that are being displayed and in the tethered situation you as the
consumer
have access and control over it, so you could potentially put very
unsafe applications into the dashboard in the tether model.
Walls: What about the conflict, I don't want to say conflict, maybe the
existing tension between, in terms of development cycles
cars are on the drawing board forever, right
and it takes a long time to bring something to market. In the wireless
development community its about now, now, now.
So, there's a natural tension there. Kerton: There is and that's actually one of the reasons
that the Auto Tech Council exists
because the Auto OEM and the tier 1 vendors have been
slowly opening their eyes to the fact that they need to work with
entrepreneurs and they the need to work with, they can't build all the software and cannot
have all of the ideas themselves
so, they need to work with third parties, but third parties don't know
about all of the requirements in the car safety as you mention being
top priority, but reliability, things can't break
and these really long development cycles that the OEM have
in the case a venture funded startup you know you can't really ask your VC
for three
three years on the runway. Walls: Look at their eyes cross and they'll
think you're out of your mind. Kerton: Exactly, they'll say no this 2 million dollars that I gave you
you need to get to revenue. I don't know how you gonna do it go find another
consumer and not the car company. It is
challenging and the reason that the Auto Tech Council is there to help
this communication is the
OEM's want to use start ups, but they don't
know how to communicate. They don't know how to move fast.
They don't have, right now, a way for the startups to actually
enter into the development cycle of the cars. They're starting.
In silicon valley right now we have 12 OEM from
a 250 person facility with Mercedes Benz to
five people who represent Renault
right now and some of them do venture fund like Hyundai has a venture fund
and GM has a venture fund, and some of them are basically doing R&D
and looking for start ups that way, so they're engaging
they're moving slowly as you know the big bad OEM
have a tendency to do and the startups are starting to figure out that
safety and reliability is something they need to build into all of their products
Walls: So, if you look at driver safety as we think about it, we think about the driver.
What about the car
itself? What what kind of technology is being placed into the car?
That ultimately tells the operator you are behaving erratically
or irresponsibly, or whatever. Kerton: There's an entire category of innovation right now it's
it's called EDAC
and its automated driving systems and it helps
the car use all of these massive amounts of sensors. The
latest volvo was released with sixty sensors in it, the number sensors in the
Google cars are phenomenal and the amount of data that it generates and they're using
location sensors, they're using in some cases vehicle to vehicle
communication, vehicle to infrastructure
So communicating between the car and the street lights,the car and the stop
sign
but the visual sensors can help you know if you're going out of the lane and
if the car behind you is to close. It can regulate your braking
Or it can pre-brake for you you. You know that millisecond between the time you take
your foot off the ground to put it on the brake pedal
if the cars already braking for you it will get you stopped a lot faster.
So, a lot of these sensors and safety products are coming out
and they're not all luckily being developed by the OEM
they are going to third parties and they are outsourcing a lot of this.
Walls: Well it's a rich new world, right. Kerton: It is
It's machine to machine, internet of things explosion.
Walls: On the highway Kerton: Yeah
Walls Thanks for joining us. Always a pleasure.
Kerton: Absolutely, thank you