Continental invests in EasyMile, pushes ahead with autonomous vehicles

Technology company Continental has agreed to acquire a minority share French autonomous shuttle manufacturer EasyMile and the companies plan to cooperate closely in the development of environmental sensors, braking systems and driving safety technologies.
July 5, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

Technology company 260 Continental has agreed to acquire a minority share French autonomous shuttle manufacturer 8246 EasyMile and the companies plan to cooperate closely in the development of environmental sensors, braking systems and driving safety technologies.

Continental believes that autonomous shuttles are set to play a key role in efficiently addressing the ‘first mile – last mile’ challenge, enabling seamless mobility services for urban mobility.

Continental says its investment opens the door to numerous possible applications within EasyMile shuttles worldwide, while incorporating tried and tested large-scale production techniques from the automotive field. The EasyMile EZ10 fleet will be running on Continental EcoContact tyres with optimised tread geometry, ensuring low rolling resistance and rolling noise.

The complex requirements of driverless vehicles are already being studied under real conditions at Continental’s premises in Frankfurt with its development platform CUbE (Continental Urban mobility Experience), which is based on an EasyMile EZ10 shuttle.

The EasyMile EZ10 shuttle is a twelve-person autonomous shuttle first released in 2014, which has been deployed in more than 50 cities across 17 countries in Asia-Pacific, North America, the Middle East and Europe. Continental began testing automated systems on public roads in 2012 in Nevada, USA. The company now has a global operating fleet of development vehicles in Germany, the USA, Japan and China.

Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Daimler debuts autonomous truck on US roads
    May 20, 2015
    Daimler Trucks has become the world’s first manufacturer to be granted a road licence for an autonomous heavy-duty truck. The state of Nevada licensed two Freightliner Inspiration trucks for regular operation on public roads. The first journey in the Freightliner Inspiration truck equipped with the intelligent Highway Pilot system for autonomous driving took place on US highway 15 in Las Vegas.
    Read More
  • Smith Electric Vehicles attracts Chinese investment
    March 13, 2012
    Smith Electric Vehicles Corporation, a specialist in all-electric commercial vehicles, has signed a letter of intent with Wanxiang Group, an automotive parts manufacturing and supplier.
    Read More
  • Aptiv: the world needs smarter cities
    March 18, 2020
    As the world’s population migrates to ever-larger urban areas, Aptiv’s Ingo Stuermer believes that a number of ITS technologies will encourage mobility to power change for smarter cities
    Read More
  • The financial benefits of public transport
    July 16, 2012
    According to the UITP, the International Association of Public Transport, public transport offers even better value for money than usually stated. To address the issue, it has released a Focus Paper - Assessing the benefits of public transport - and is holding a special session dedicated to the theme during the UITP World Congress in Vienna, Austria, from 7-11 June.
    Read More

Highlighted Content