Auto Parts Asia — August 2017

TRAILBLAZING TRENDS

By T Murrali

Change Begets Innovation

8 | AutoPartsAsia | AUGUST 2017

O

nly change is constant in the

world and change begets

innovation, the existential

growth engine. However,

innovation has to be incubated to get

the maximum out of it. As part of its

innovation incubation initiative Lexus

International has called for entries for

the Lexus Design Award 2018. The

creative theme for the award is ‘CO’,

a prefix of Latin origin meaning, with

or together in harmony.

The initiative was launched in 2013

to identify and recognize the next

generation of global creators and

designers. Every year, thousands of

young talents from around the world

send their entries. Only 12 of them

get selected for the final round. The

chosen twelve and their works will be

introduced to the design community

and beyond at the Milan Design

Week 2018. From them four will be

selected for mentoring by established

global designers and they will get

a production budget of about USD

25,000 to create actual prototypes.

Best Practices Award

Cloudera, the leading provider of

the modern platform for machine

learning and advanced analytics, has

announced that TDWI (Transforming

Data With Intelligence) has named

Navistar’s Internet-of-Things (IoT)

deployment of Cloudera as a winner

of the 2017 Best Practices Award in

the Big Data category.

Navistar, a leading manufacturer of

commercial trucks, buses, defence

vehicles and engines, was chosen

for its IoT-enabled connected

vehicles and real-time diagnostics

solution, that helps manage and

maintain vehicles through predictive

analytics. The vehicle maker was

able to analyse over 70 unique data

feeds from connected vehicles in

real-time, across multiple telematics

sources. It has been able to gain

real-time visibility of more than

300,000 vehicles, help customers

reduce maintenance cost and

vehicle downtime up to 40 percent,

and immediately reduce spending

on proprietary hardware and disk

solutions.

By utilizing the platform, Navistar is

now able to offer real-time monitoring

and advanced vehicle diagnostics

as value-added services for its

customers like fleet owners, large

enterprises, government agencies

etc. Cloudera reported that one of

Navistar’s customers was able to

reduce the vehicle maintenance

costs-per-mile from 12-15 cents to

less than three cents for its large fleet.

A significant saving for the operator,

and the society.

Breaking Into Brakes

Last month Bosch celebrated the 90th

anniversary of its automotive brakes

development. For 90 years, Bosch

engineers set new standards making

cars safer by means of technical

innovations, inventions and patents

for brake systems. Bosch presented

the pneumatic servo brake in 1927.

It increased road safety significantly.

Thanks to this invention, the braking

distance of the contemporary

commercial vehicles was reduced

by one third. One year later, the

company presented the brake support,

a compact brake assistance system

for passenger cars. In 1978 Bosch

introduced the anti-lock braking system

(ABS), and then the traction control

system and the electronic stability

programme (ESP) the most important

components for safe braking.

Bosch helps also to develop race

cars. In the Formula Student Germany

(FSG) competition, the company is

helping more than 30 teams develop

and design their formula race cars,

and to put them into operation. Last

month the company invited some 300

students from four countries to its

Boxberg proving ground to prepare

their vehicles for the competition

on the Hockenheimring circuit. The

company’s support is in the form of

hardware components, software, and

expertise. It has been involved in this

race series since 10 years. About 115

teams will take part in the season’s

opening contest in Hockenheim

during the second week of August.

Cruising Chauffeur

Continental has recently announced

that it is testing a new technology

called ‘Cruising Chauffeur,’ which

gives vehicles the ability to take

over the driving task on highways in

accordance with the national traffic

regulations. Part of the division of

tasks between the driver and the

vehicle is that the driver takes over

driving again at the end of the stretch

of the highway. This handing over

is initiated by a specially developed

human machine interface that is also

being tested in vehicles.

Even if the driver fails to respond

when prompted to take over – for

health reasons, for example –

the vehicle is able to stop safely

automatically. This is done using

the ‘minimum risk manoeuvre,’ in

which the vehicle identifies where

there is space to stop safely, and

automatically heads there. The

company stated that this function

will be part of the Cruising Chauffeur

when it is ready for production in

2020.