Here is another E-Flex platform in Karma’s workshop. Karma Automotive announced another derivative of its E-Flex platform – this time for the high-performance super sports cars. The company says the initial development phase has been completed, which is great on the one hand, but on the other hand means that it has not yet been fully completed. Once it’s done, the performance of cars built on the platform can be spectacular: 96.5 km / h in less than 1.9 seconds up to 644 km range Flat-bottomed high-performance battery for long range and optimal weight distribution Four-wheel drive with four motors and torque vectoring 1,100 hp (over 800 kW) at peak power with a wheel torque of 14,000 Nm (10,500 lb.-ft) Power electronics made of silicon carbide (SiC) At the moment we don’t know if Karma will try to launch its own supercar model like the Karma SC2 Concept or if the platform will only be sold to OEMs. Kevin Zhang, Chief Technology Officer of Karma Automotive, said:“Our latest E-Flex platform is well suited for supercar configurations and is designed to be equipped with high-performance vehicles such as the SC2 concept car from Karma. The aim of all Karma E-Flex platforms is to offer our partners a variety of electromobility solutions with different drive motor systems and battery pack variants. Our powerful E-Flex platform is one of the highest quality of these configurations and offers unprecedented performance results. “ ——Source:n3on.org

Standing in a lengthy line at a grocery store or sitting in a crowd at a sporting event once seemed like the most ordinary of activities. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, they’re unfathomable. For the world to reopen, governments and businesses must find ways to ensure gatherings of people don’t threaten the health of workers or consumers. Adasky, an Israeli auto-tech startup, thinks it has found a way to accelerate a return to something resembling a normal way of life. In regular times, Adasky develops thermal-imaging camera technology for use in driver-assist systems and autonomous vehicles. But two weeks ago, company leaders and software engineers met for a brainstorming session on how they could help thwart COVID-19. Within a matter of days, they cobbled together prototypes that relied on their camera technology’s ability to measure heat. Instead of detecting objects on a road, that capability can now be used to measure the precise body temperature of prospective buyers at a car dealership, sports fans — anyone in public places. “After what we are witnessing now, the world after is going to look different in many ways,” Adasky CEO Yakov Shaharabani told Automotive News. “Technology will overcome the need for us to do what we’re doing, which is isolating ourselves. Technology will, step by step, help us get back to the world we knew a few weeks ago.” This week, the company will deploy cameras for temperature-taking applications in multiple Israeli hospitals. Those field tests will serve as an important validation tool, though internal testing has revealed accuracy down to a hundredth of a degree. Of course, the cameras cannot discern whether a person has the coronavirus. They merely serve to spot elevated body temperatures, a telltale symptom. That alone might be an important tool for maintaining vigilance and reassuring workers and consumers alike that best public-health practices are being followed. “I can definitely see a situation not far from today when these thermal cameras will be in all public areas, kind of like fire extinguishers,” Shaharabani said. He said Adasky has already had conversations with potential users who see benefits in ensuring high-profile CEOs and senior government officials are not in proximity to anyone who has a fever. The camera is the same used for automotive purposes. What’s changed is the software. Normally, it detects heat at ranges needed for automotive applications, but the camera was tweaked to work at short ranges and focus on taking temperatures from a specific body part, typically the head. The cameras can work passively from afar — they don’t need to be held — and they can gather temperature information simultaneously on anyone in their field of view, avoiding the need for queues of people waiting to be scanned. At mass scale, Shaharabani says it’s possible the cameras would cost less than $100 each. Only a month ago, he would never have envisioned such a new line of prospective business. On March 23, Ad...

There are different kinds of optical applications for HUD product, such as TFT (Thin Film Transistor), DLP (Digital Light Processing), and LBS (Laser Beam Scanning). The features of these techniques are as follows: •  TFT: Brightness 800~12000nits, projection becomes blurry when zooming in. Low light utilization, inefficient energy management that requires space and design for heat dissipation. •  DLP: Brightness 150lm @12W, 200lm @16W, with large projection size. Low light utilization, inefficient energy management that requires space and additional design for heat dissipation. •  LBS: Laser Bean Scanner, Brightness 25~50lm @3.7~6W, with large projection size. Easier heat dissipation. These optical projection techniques have been applied into automotive HUD products, like current HUD, WHUD and future AR HUD, in the market. HUD Display (2013~2018) uses TFT- LED panel, translating image that is projected information onto the vehicle windshield. It displays as 2D flat visual image, small virtual image with car speed, time, incoming calls and navigation, but its lack of distance perception and icons will block the front view upon driving. The WHUD Display (2017~2019) uses TFT-LED panel or DLP projection technique, projected the image directly to the windshield. However, poor brightness and contract might let the images being blurred and it doesn’t integrate to the front view, lacking of AR visuals with the driving environment. FIC LASER AR HUD (2019~Now) uses LBS projection, its high brightness makes it readable under the natural sunlight and provides distant perception (VID 2~20M). It is being able to see through the virtual images without blocking the front view. The HUD is relied on a projection device, optical technique and the light source in order to project the clear and correct information onto the car windshield. For this, FIC LASER AR HUD is using Laser as its light source and combing with optical glass design to create rich virtual images. An optical imaging element determines the shape, distance and size of the AR HUD images. The image appears to float freely over the road, the windshield acts as a deflecting subject. The AR HUD display composed by the following components: cover glass, curved mirrors, plane mirrors, diffusers (projection display), LBS, optical correction software, PCB/PCB assembly, SW flow chart, and housing/box-build. FIC designs AR HUD through design development, verification and analysis process, and cooperates with car manufacturer, windshield glass supplier and optical system supplier together, as working with car manufacturers to define imaging position, size and information, system integration, and final detection system and software testing in order to supply the best experience effect of the product. About FIC AR HUD image blending portions, the size of IP structure design & projection angle will affect the display image size and distance differently. The projection angle is from 5°, 10° to 2...

With Samsung's ISOCELL HM1/HMX sensor, some mobile phones have taken the lead in carrying a 180 million pixel camera, bringing new possibilities for photographing. It was reported that Samsung is developing a 150 million pixel Nonacell image sensor. However, Yongin Park, executive vice president of Samsung LSI, said in the latest article published on the official website that they are preparing to develop a 600 million pixel (600 MP) sensor product, directly breaking through the human eye limit (about 500 million pixels). Similar to the current 108MP sensor's nine in one technology, at the scale of 600MP, Samsung is bound to use multi-pixel synthesis technology to simulate the background and improve the quality of the chip, which may require the introduction of new materials and other technologies. In addition, Yongin Park also mentioned that the Samsung LSI sensor can capture light waves beyond the human eye (450nm to 750nm away), such as ultraviolet sensor can be used to detect skin cancer, infrared sensor can be used for industrial quality control, etc. It is reported that Samsung's 600 million pixel CMOS size will be relatively large, which may not be for smart phone development, but for Autonomous driving, Internet of Things and other fields. ──Source: Mydrivers

SHANGHAI -- Beijing, aiming to help the electrified-vehicle sector pull through the coronavirus outbreak, last month extended subsidies for full-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids for two more years. Despite the extra support, electrified-vehicle sales likely will shrink more severely than the broader new-vehicle market in the near future. It’s already happening. Equally impacted by the viral outbreak, demand for electrified vehicles fell much more than overall new-car and light-trucks sales in March, as well as in the first quarter. In March, while China’s overall new-vehicle sales slipped 43 percent to 1.43 million, combined deliveries of new EVs and plug-in hybrids dropped 53 percent to about 53,000. In the first quarter, total new-vehicle sales dropped 42 percent to 3.67 million. Demand for new EVs and plug-in hybrids slumped 56 percent to 114,000. In addition to the pandemic, China’s electrified-vehicle market hasn’t fully recovered from the blow when subsidies were drastically cut by Beijing in June 2019. Back then, when it intended to phase out the incentive program by the end of 2020, the government scaled back subsidies for EVs by 60 percent and halved the amount for plug-in hybrids. With the new cuts, full-electric passenger vehicles qualify for subsidies of up to 25,000 yuan ($3,531) and plug-in hybrid cars are granted a flat 10,000 yuan break. Even with the latest extension, it’s hard to predict how soon China’s electrified-vehicle market will shrug off the dampening effect of the subsidy cuts. With the global economy sliding into a recession, oil prices have tumbled. Prices of gasoline and diesel in China have dropped 27 percent and 30 percent, respectively, in the first three months. For car shoppers, the sharp decline in fuel prices has undermined the appeal of subsidies on electrified vehicles. It also remains to be seen to what extent the carbon credit program Beijing implemented last year can push automakers to expand electrified-vehicle output. The program requires passenger-vehicle makers to earn one carbon credit for every 100 vehicles they produce. It allots a fixed two credits for a plug-in hybrid and two to five credits to an EV depending on its range -- the longer the range, the higher the credits. Under the program, carmakers must earn an amount of credits equivalent to 10 percent of their annual output in 2019. The rate will rise to 12 percent next year. Reflecting the large number of electric cars churned out by Chinese carmakers such as BYD and BAIC Motor Co., China’s passenger-vehicle industry ended 2019 with a surplus of more than 3 million carbon credits, according to a tally the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released last week. The huge surplus allows foreign automakers, most of which are short of carbon credits because of limited electrified-vehicle output, to purchase credits from domestic automakers at relatively low prices. And it explains why most international carmakers are sticking to t...

The key to the popularity of electric vehicles lies in whether the charging speed of batteries can be improved, which can gradually make charging as convenient as fuel charging. Both battery and electric vehicle manufacturers are committed to the research and development of fast-charging technology. A team from Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Toyota Research Institute published a new study in Nature, revealed how artificial intelligence could speed up the testing process required for novel charging techniques. The problem of battery fast charging is that under the condition of fast charging, the degradation rate of battery will be accelerated, and even the risk of overheating and fire. However, to evaluate the impact of different charging methods on the battery, hundreds of charging and discharging cycles must be carried out until the battery fails to test the battery life. Every new battery composition or every new charging method can only make out the results after such a long charge discharge cycle, and then it can be improved by waiting for hundreds of charging and discharging cycles to see how the new results are. It is conceivable that the speed of R & D is bound to be greatly encumberd. The research team applied artificial intelligence to solve the problem of time-consuming experiment. The research started in 2017 when Toyota Research Institute invested 35 million US dollars for research on artificial intelligence auxiliary battery, the original goal is to develop new battery materials. In 2019, the research team changed to use artificial intelligence to assist the computer to simulate the battery charging and discharging cycles. It only needs 9% of the actual charging and discharging test time, so it can evaluate 224 possible high-cycle-life charging processes in just over two weeks. Undoubtedly, this will greatly increase the research and development speed of fast charging. With the development of battery technology and charging technology, the service life is getting longer and longer. The time from charging and discharging cycle to the end of service life will be longer and longer. Computer simulation will be a compromise solution. First, find out the best possible technology through computer simulation, and then conduct field test, which can greatly reduce the time of trial error. Artificial intelligence is not only applied in the research stage, but also in the Canadian new business, GBatteries, uses artificial intelligence directly to accelerate the charging speed. When fast-charging, artificial intelligence can evaluate the battery condition at any time. Once it may cause battery damage, suspend charging to avoid irreversible damage to the battery. It can avoid damaging the battery and charge at the fastest possible speed. GBatteries technology is currently only applied to small batteries. When it is used in electric tools, the charging time can be reduced from 30-60 minutes to 11 minutes. However...

The virtual automobile cluster replaces the most representative parts of the existing cluster such as indicators and digits with a screen. Its advantage is that users can define their own instrument system to meet different requirements, which is more powerful, flexible and easier to connect with the network, peripherals and other applications. Virtual automobile instrument cluster benefits from more powerful graphics processing and display effect, more indicators are designed by quasi-physical method, which can effectively shorten the user's acceptance process. Multimedia entertainment information and basic vehicle information can also be displayed more logically, centralized display helps to improve driving safety, and driving sight does not need to switch frequently in multiple locations; in addition, simplicity The design can also leave more space for the ride area or storage. Although LCD technology is mature now, it is not only simple to install a LCD cluster on a car with a display screen. In fact, this is rather complex system engineering. After changing to LCD screen, first of all, the vehicle information presented to drivers is much richer than the traditional instrument cluster. The collection of information, the cooperation of LCD cluster and sensor, the precision adjustment of display instrument and so on, all need to be overcome one by one by the car manufacturers. And each vehicle must undergo strict high and low temperature test before mass production; as part of the whole vehicle, the instrument panel module should also meet the same high and low temperature test standards. But because the space in the dashboard bin is relatively small, and the GPU of the LCD module, the display screen and so on will heat up in the use process. The higher resolution of LCD screen, the higher the calorific value. Therefore, finding or developing a suitable hardware product for vehicle interior environment and matching a set of hardware environment to meet the requirements of vehicle use are also technical difficulty that the R&D team has to overcome. With 40 years of design experiences by implementing NXP solutions, FIC products coupled with rising digitization that leads to everything seamless connected. We offer wide range of edge computing cuts across the IoT, from S.M.B, building automation and to the most complex vehicle with variety of NXP solutions in order to design and produce automotive digital cluster for your special needs.

According to the latest Cisco Annual Internet Report, 5G will support more than 10 percent of global mobile network connections by 2023, and the average 5G speed will be 575 megabits per second, or 13 times faster than the average mobile network connection. With powerful functions, 5G will provide more flexible mobile infrastructure for artificial intelligence and emerging Internet of things applications, such as autonomous cars, smart cities, telemedicine and panoramic video. For the past 50 years, there has been a new top mobile technology every 10 years. The requirements for mobile broadband have also evolved from voice calls and texting to ultra-high definition (UHD) video, as well as a variety of augmented reality or virtual reality (AR / VR) applications. With the gradual adoption of mobile applications by users, consumers and business users around the world are also increasing their demands and expectations for mobile networks. It is also clear that social networks, video streaming and downloading, enterprise business production, e-commerce and games will continue to drive the growth of mobile applications, and it is expected to reach nearly 300 billion downloads by 2023. Roland Acra, senior vice president and technical director of Cisco, said: "Cisco research has found that Internet users, devices and connections are growing, and the increase in Internet demand is beyond our imagination. As connectivity and applications continue to grow, the insights and expertise shared in Cisco Annual Internet Report help businesses, governments and service providers around the world prepare and protect the networks to cope with the continued growth of connectivity and applications. Strategic planning and partnerships are essential to the technological innovation and investment development of all institutions. " Summary of Cisco Annual Internet Report(2018~2023) Cisco Annual Internet Report covers mobile, wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi), and fixed broadband networks, and quantifies the growth of users, devices, connections, and network performance and related trends over the next five-year (2018-2023). Global mobile and Internet user projections by 2023 - More than 70 percent of the global population (5.7 billion people) will have mobile connectivity (2G, 3G, 4G or 5G). - Internet users will account for 66 percent (5.3 billion) of the global population. Global plant and connectivity projections by 2023 - 3.6 networked devices or connections per capita, while the average household has about 10 devices and connections. - Nearly half (47 percent) of the devices and connections will have video function. - Machine to Machine (M2M) connections that support a broad range of Internet of Things (IoT) applications will represent about 50 percent (14.7 billion) of global devices and connections. Global mobile projections by 2023 - 45 percent of the network devices will be mobile network connections, including 3G and below, 4G, 5G or Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) networks, ...

We’re in the midst of a public health emergency, and life as we know it has ground to a halt. The places we usually go are closed, the events we were looking forward to are canceled, and some of us have lost our jobs or fear losing them soon. But although it may not seem like it, there are some silver linings; this crisis is bringing out the worst in some (I’m looking at you, toilet paper hoarders), but the best in many. Italians on lockdown are singing together, Spaniards on lockdown are exercising together, this entrepreneur made a DIY ventilator and put it on YouTube, and volunteers in Italy 3D printed medical valves for virus treatment at a fraction of their usual cost. Indeed, if you want to feel like there’s still hope for humanity instead of feeling like we’re about to snowball into terribleness as a species, just look at these examples—and I’m sure there are many more out there. There’s plenty of hope and opportunity to be found in this crisis. Peter Xing, a keynote speaker and writer on emerging technologies and associate director in technology and growth initiatives at KPMG, would agree. Xing believes the coronavirus epidemic is presenting us with ample opportunities for increased automation and remote delivery of goods and services. “The upside right now is the burgeoning platform of the digital transformation ecosystem,” he said. In a thought-provoking talk at Singularity University’s COVID-19 virtual summit this week, Xing explained how the outbreak is accelerating our transition to a highly-automated society—and painted a picture of what the future may look like. Confronting Scarcity You’ve probably seen them by now—the barren shelves at your local grocery store. Whether you were in the paper goods aisle, the frozen food section, or the fresh produce area, it was clear something was amiss; the shelves were empty. One of the most inexplicable items people have been panic-bulk-buying is toilet paper. Xing described this toilet paper scarcity as a prisoner’s dilemma, pointing out that we have a scarcity problem right now in terms of our mindset, not in terms of actual supply shortages. “It’s a prisoner’s dilemma in that we’re all prisoners in our homes right now, and we can either hoard or not hoard, and the outcomes depend on how we collaborate with each other,” he said. “But it’s not a zero-sum game.” Xing referenced a CNN article about why toilet paper, of all things, is one of the items people have been panic-buying most (I, too, have been utterly baffled by this phenomenon). But maybe there’d be less panic if we knew more about the production methods and supply chain involved in manufacturing toilet paper. It turns out it’s a highly automated process (you can learn more about it in this documentary by National Geographic) and requires very few people (though it does require about 27,000 trees a day—so stop bulk-buying it! Just stop!). The supply chain limitation here is in the raw material; we certainly can’t keep cutting down thi...

‘’AR and VR and other real-world interactive technologies gradually get rid of hype and become more practical. In fact, AR / VR / XR and other technologies have found a more suitable place in the market for their technology applications.’’ From this year’s CES 2020, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and other real-world interactive technologies are no longer as hyped as CES in previous years, but gradually become more practical. In fact, from safe driving, manufacturing site, consumer games to professional fields, AR/VR/XR has found more in line with the technology’s position in the marketplace. Althought CES has come to the end, we can still find the application of AR/VR/XR. For example, there were number of booths that used VR for demonstration purposes, especially the automobile manufacturers. Honda, Jeep and Audi demonstrated that used VR to simulate driving conditions. The Jeep 4×4 Adventure VR Experience was a simulated off-road journey on the famous off-road trail called Moab’s “Hell’s Revenge.” Each wheel of the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is equipped with hydraulic cylinder, so that jeeps can respond to the location of the wheels on the driveway. The hydraulic system replicates the movement and sight that the driver experiences during the off-road journey when wearing VR glasses, making it seem to be in the resort of Moab off-road. In addition to taking off-road experience as the selling point of today's vehicles, Future Honda Mobility lets us preview the future action ecosystem using VR, which may be the actual situation in 2035 and beyond. Honda provides the future urban environment experience with V2X system, including safe driving, Autonomous Shared Mobility Pod, and take flight in a personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle. CES 2020 did not release any new AR / VR products, most of which were released in 2019; however, that hadn’t been the case in the past. This year's more breakthrough product is Nreal AR glasses. Nreal initially launched its developer edition product at Augmented World Expo (AWE) in 2019 and has been showing ever improved versions since. The company continues to work closely with Qualcomm to develop lightweight AR glasses for use with Snapdragon processor enabled mobile phones, or stand-alone computer devices using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. I have tried the glasses and have seen that the overlay image is quite bright and has a wide field of view. The glasses support six degrees of freedom (6-DoF) movement. This year, the Nreal light AR glasses finally came out of the consumer version, which tether to a Snapdragon-based phone. New user interface, Nebula UI, also helps bring 2D applications (APPs) into the 3D world, allowing users to launch 2D apps and place them anywhere in the 3D space. Oculus Quest now is the most popular VR headwear device, that was out of stock for weeks around the holidays. I order one on December 13, and finally got my product after CES. Oculus Quest head...