Continental and EasyMile team up for autonomous driving R&D

Automotive giant Continental has signed a deal with autonomous driving specialist EasyMile to create a joint R&D facility in Singapore. The combined team will work on solutions for driverless mobility, focusing on perception and deep learning, to prepare autonomous vehicle (AV) technology for tests. The companies call their memorandum of understanding a “stepping stone in a structured approach to AV testing on public roads in Singapore”. The city-state of Singapore is looking to AVs to improve its trans
November 16, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

Automotive giant 260 Continental has signed a deal with autonomous driving specialist 8246 EasyMile to create a
joint R&D facility in Singapore.

The combined team will work on solutions for driverless mobility, focusing on perception and deep learning,
to prepare autonomous vehicle (AV) technology for tests.

The companies call their memorandum of understanding a “stepping stone in a structured approach to AV
testing on public roads in Singapore”.

The city-state of Singapore is looking to AVs to improve its transport system, enhancing first- and last-
mile connectivity between peoples’ homes and nearby public transport nodes.

There is an existing AV test centre in Jurong Innovation District and several ongoing AV trials in the
metropolitan area.

In addition, ComfortDelGro is to test an EasyMile EZ10 autonomous shuttle at the National University of
Singapore’s Kent Ridge Campus, while 609 Volvo Buses has entered a two-year partnership with Nanyang
Technological University to test autonomous electric buses – both beginning early next year.

Singapore has also identified three towns for pilot deployment of AVs for public transport by the early
2020s.

Continental already has around 1,300 staff in Singapore.  “Our Singapore location is one of our largest R&D
locations in Asia already,” says Ralph Lauxmann, the group’s head of systems & technology. “With the joint
autonomous driving R&D team we have expanded the network.”

The companies say their results “can be used as a blueprint for the deployment of driverless systems in

other regions of the world”.

Gilbert Gagnaire, CEO of EasyMile, said the collaboration “is an important step to accelerate the
development of new technology for global markets as well as to benefit of the advance and dynamism of
Singapore’s autonomous driving ecosystem”.

Continental became a minority shareholder in the French company last year. EasyMile is involved in more
than 200 driverless projects in 24 countries. 

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Volvo Cars and Uber join forces to develop autonomous driving cars
    August 19, 2016
    Swedish car maker Volvo Cars is to join forces with ride-sharing company Uber to develop next generation autonomous driving cars, alliance marks the beginning of what both companies view as a longer term industrial partnership. The two companies have signed an agreement to establish a joint project that will develop new base vehicles that will be able to incorporate the latest developments in autonomous driving technologies, up to and including fully autonomous driverless cars. The base vehicles will be
    Read More
  • Yeti more AV snow-clearing by Semcon
    April 29, 2019
    There is a lot of debate about the place of autonomous vehicles on our roads – but a Swedish company is already ploughing ahead with driverless snow clearance on airport runways, writes David Arminas Femcon, a Swedish applied automation company, has started an on-site project to clear snow from runway landing lights using autonomous vehicles (AVs). Most often, this time-consuming job has to be done manually because of the intricate manoeuvres needed to avoid damaging the lighting systems. The trial pro
    Read More
  • C-ITS in the EU: ‘It has got a little tribal recently’
    April 16, 2019
    As the C-ITS Delegated Act begins its journey through the European policy maze, Adam Hill looks at who is expecting what from this proposed framework for connected vehicles – and why some people are insisting that the lawmakers are already getting things wrong
    Read More
  • Taxi sector to lead self-driving market by 2025, say researchers
    November 24, 2016
    New findings from Juniper Research reveal that the annual production of self-driving cars will reach 14.5 million in 2025, up significantly from only a few thousands in 2020, to give a global installed base of more than 22 million consumer vehicles by 2025. The new research, Autonomous Vehicles & ADAS: Adoption, Regulation & Business Models 2016-2025, found that the market adoption of AV (Autonomous Vehicle) technology is set to accelerate over the next few years, driven by: Increasingly stringent vehicl
    Read More

Highlighted Content