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

  • Ex-Yunex boss Schlitt takes over at Holon
    May 2, 2025
    Holon Urban driverless shuttle will be tested on streets of Hamburg this year
  • 60% of new cars globally will feature connected car solutions by 2017
    July 4, 2012
    New findings from ABI Research predict that global OEM connected car system penetration will increase from 11.4 per cent in 2012 to 60.1 per cent in 2017. While penetration in the US and Western Europe will exceed 80 per cent by 2017, developing regions such as Latin America and Eastern Europe will also see strong increases in telematics penetration in new vehicles, largely driven by mandates in Brazil and Russia.
  • Visteon’s enters partnership on autonomous driving and cockpit systems
    January 11, 2018
    Visteon Corporation has signed a strategic agreement with China-based vehicle manufacturer Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. Automotive Engineering Institute (GAC Engineering) to further its efforts to develop and deploy autonomous driving and other cockpit electronics solutions. Through the agreement, both companies will collaborate on autonomous driving solutions using Visteon’s DriveCore platform on a vehicle program scheduled to launch in 2020. It will also focus on potential commercial engagements
  • Green light for Google self-driving vehicle prototypes
    May 18, 2015
    Google has announced the next step in its autonomous vehicle program and is about to begin testing its new prototype self-driving vehicles on public roads. This summer, the company will move its cars from the test track to the roads with safety drivers aboard. The company has been rigorously testing the cars at its test facilities for several years. The new prototypes are based on the company’s existing fleet of self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs, which has logged nearly a million autonomous miles and recen