Skip to main content

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.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Motorcycle manufacturers partner on C-ITS
    October 9, 2015
    BMW Motorrad, Honda Motor Company and Yamaha Motor Company have joined forces to enhance Cooperative-Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) applications in powered two-wheelers (PTWs) and are working together to establish a consortium named Connected Motorcycle Consortium. According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was signed by all European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM) manufacturing members in 2014, C-ITS features will be introduced from 2020 onwards. In order to acc
  • Transdev and Delphi team up to develop on-demand autonomous transportation
    June 12, 2017
    Mobility services provider Transdev is partnering with Delphi Automotive to develop a global, fully automated, mobility-on-demand (AMoD) transport system. The system will utilise Transdev’s universal routing engine (URE) and Delphi’s automated driving platform, the Centralised Sensing, Planning and Localisation (CSLP) platform which Delphi is developing in partnership with Mobileye.
  • Global commercial telematics market ‘worth US$47.58 billion by 2020’
    September 9, 2015
    According to research company MarketsandMarkets, the market for commercial telematics is expected to grow from US$20.02 billion in 2015 to US$47.58 billion by 2020. In terms of regions, Europe is expected to be the largest market in terms of market size, while Middle East & Africa and Asia-Pacific (APAC) are expected to experience an increase in market traction, during the forecast period. Latin America is expected to experience a high growth rate and adoption trend in this market.
  • European Truck Platooning Challenge winds up at Intertraffic
    March 2, 2016
    As holder of the EU Presidency in 2016, the Netherlands has organised the 2016 European Truck Platooning Challenge and it is no coincidence that it will involve Intertraffic Amsterdam. Truck platooning, where two or more trucks travel in convoy very close to each other, provides many benefits. The first truck does the driving while the ones following are connected by a wireless electronic communications system, like the carriages of a train.