Skip to main content

Here announces connected vehicle breakthrough

Here, the global location technology company, is at the ITS World Congress with a major breakthrough in connected cars. At this year's Paris Motor Show, the company announced that Audi, BMW and Mercedes- Benz will supply Here, which they jointly own, with real-time sensor data collected by their cars to enable systems to better understand their surroundings. The deal marks the first time a trio of leading brands have agreed to share data, and could indicate the beginning of a proper connected car industry.
October 10, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Bernd Fastenrath of Here displays the company's technology

7643 Here, the global location technology company, is at the ITS World Congress with a major breakthrough in connected cars. At this year's Paris Motor Show, the company announced that Audi, BMW and Mercedes- Benz will supply Here, which they jointly own, with real-time sensor data collected by their cars to enable systems to better understand their surroundings. The deal marks the first time a trio of leading brands have agreed to share data, and could indicate the beginning of a proper connected car industry. The technology will likely act as a catalyst to the rolling out of more autonomous technology.

“We’re showing for the first time how you can take the value of rich sensor data coming from a vehicle and use it to do things that positively impact safety and efficiency,” Alex Mangan, Here’s product marketing manager for connected driving, told The Daily News.

“To make the most of connected systems and eventually automated systems, we all as an industry need each other.

"The cars need sensor data, and with this kind of agreement, for example, a Toyota vehicle could have an understanding of what the Range Rover car saw down the road, if everyone's involved."

“It’s an interesting time, because every single OEM knows that in order to do the things they want to do, they need to share data,” he said . “If more brands are willing to collaborate around data, the growth in available data will create a global cloud of information that, once normalised, will essentially act as an Internet of Things (IoT) for the automotive world.

“We don’t want to take over the world here, we want to help people put location context into their services. Since understanding location is quickly becoming more and more important for so many devices, we’re sitting at the crux of such a unique time on this planet,” said Mangan. “Our ambition is that we can help make this world a safer, more efficient place, as well as more technologically relevant to people.”

Related Content

  • September 30, 2020
    Parifex speed cameras: picture perfect
    From speed cameras to smart cities, image processing and AI – Parifex is not short of ambition. Nathalie Deguen tells Adam Hill where the French company is heading next
  • July 31, 2012
    Future of US cooperative infrastructure networks
    Peter H. Appel, the new Administrator of the USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, on his vision of the US's future cooperative infrastructure networks. Peter H. Appel comes to the post of Administrator of the US Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) from a background in transportation-related work which stretches back over 20 years. Most recently with management consultancy A. T. Kearney, Inc., where he focused on busin
  • July 13, 2020
    Transit in a time of protest
    Street demonstrations at times create tricky balancing acts for public transportation providers - and the recent Black Lives Matter protests have also put a spotlight on the deeper problem of ‘infrastructural racism’…
  • December 14, 2012
    Preparing for connected vehicle technology challenge
    A decision on mandating connected vehicle technology is expected in 2013, when associated political issues such as privacy are likely to come to the fore. Pete Goldin investigates industry’s preparations for the challenge. Once in a while new technology comes along with the power to revolutionise the way we live our lives. Connected vehicle technology could be such a game changer. If mandated in the United States, it could quickly become the status quo for transportation in the US, and such a disruptive cha