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Consumer interest may be less than expected for ridesharing and other car-related technological developments.

According to TECHnalysis Research founder Bob O'Donnell, popular automotive technologies like ridesharing and self-driving cars may not be as interesting to customers as the industry says.

Ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft are gaining traction among investors for their larger vision of turning cars into services. This vision of...

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The number of active fleet management systems deployed in commercial vehicle fleets in Australia and New Zealand will rise from 0.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 1.1 million by 2020, at a CAGR of 16%, according to the latest note from analyst firm Berg Insight.

The market in the region is driven positively by a number of factors including regulatory developments such as health and safety regulations, road user charges and electronic work diaries.

Rickard Andersson, senior...

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Google plans to bring the complete Android Auto experience to smartphones, removing the need to plug the phone into a compatible car.

The feature, as reported by The Verge and as explained by Google at its I/O conference, will come via an update to the Android Auto phone app towards the end of 2016. As a result, drivers can mount the phone on the dash and use the Android Auto app for...

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A report from SNS Research estimates that connected car services will bring in nearly $40 billion (£27.3bn) in annual revenue by 2020, including infotainment, navigation and fleet management among others.

The connected car segment is the fastest growing vertical in the Internet of Things (IoT) market due to the growth in use of embedded in-vehicle connectivity and smartphone integration platforms, the researchers argue. All major automotive OEMs are investing in connected car...

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Connected car technology manufacturer HARMAN International has announced the development of a system to remove blind spots in cars to avoid collisions with pedestrians.

Accidents involving pedestrians cause around 200 deaths and injure 15,000 people every year in the US. HARMAN's Reverse Pedestrian Detection safety system uses data from other HARMAN technologies, including a rear sensor and camera, to detect pedestrians behind a vehicle. Most importantly, it can detect smaller children...

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Comtech Telecommunications has announced the arrival of two major Fortune 100 customers to provide location, navigation and messaging to boost the connected car experience.

One of the customers is set to use Comtech’s navigation point-to-point routing and geocoding services. The platform centred on location functions with or without an Internet connection and combines real-time traffic to provide efficient routing. The other customer will use Comtech’s Family Locator to...

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Automotive giant Toyota is planning to install a data communication module into many of its vehicles.

The company is also weighing the use of satellite communications, including high capacity satellites that provide higher data transfer rates than traditional satellite technologies. Conventional satellites need a “dish” antenna on the ground.

As a result, Toyota showcased a research vehicle based on the Mirai fuel cell vehicle that featured satellite communications...

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HARMAN has launched what it calls the Life Enhancing Intelligent Vehicle Solution (LIVS), with a view to bringing together separate connectvitiy and operational functions under a new automotive computing platform.

LIVS is an end-to-end system that offers adaptable and personal solutions in the car. The company will showcase the technology on the latest Rinspeed concept car, called Etos.

LIVS has the potential to transform the driving experience, HARMAN claims, and the Etos features...

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Automotive giant Volkswagen has expanded a five-year relationship with RealVNC to enable it to ensure a consistent quality user experience in its cars – whatever handset the user is using.

Using its VNS Automotive Mirrorlink Certified solution car owners are able to pair their car with their smartphone. This then allows their devices to perform numerous functions within the car – from streaming movies to the backseats to running mapping applications on the centre...

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The UK Department of Transportation (DOT) is planning to update its position toward self-driving cars in the coming weeks as tech companies and automakers work on turning them into reality.

The agency is also working on making it mandatory for all new cars to come with vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies.

Anthony Foxx, Transportation Secretary, said: "I expect the changes to...

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The Connected Car Expo, held in conjunction with the Los Angeles Auto Show, will feature a number of developments slated to take the connected car industry forward. The GENIVI Alliance and Magellan are among the vendors showcasing their latest products at the expo.

The GENIVI Alliance is putting on display its Remote Vehicle Interaction (RVI) open source software technology that is meant to aid automakers in the development of the next generation of connected features.

At the expo, the...

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V2X technology company Cohda Wireless has developed V2X-Radar, a cost-effective, 360-degree radar to complement V2X connected car systems.

Targeting early adopters and a market that is currently witnessing a low penetration rate, the radar features a 360-degree sensor capable of perceiving buildings, road signs and legacy vehicles.

Key to autonomous vehicles, the radar’s functionality is not challenged by rain, snow and fog. The product ensures visibility around corners and...

Just yesterday, we reported Ford has developed a V2V system for hazard reporting which alerts other drivers and vehicles to upcoming problems. Today it's the turn of Nokia-owned location intelligence and mapping specialists, HERE, who are testing a simpler but more readily-available solution for drivers to report problems on the road. 

Whereas Ford uses a complicated system which...

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TomTom and Tech Mahindra have come together to showcase their complete Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) service line-up at IAA New Mobility World.

At the IAA event in Frankfurt, Germany, the two firms are showcasing their use cases and demonstrations for connected cars. Mahindra's ADAS offering is the Pedestrian Detection solution, which works with TomTom's BRIDGE hardware connectivity platform to link with other TomTom-powered business applications. BRIDGE has an external...

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Microsoft plans to partner with Taiwanese partners to launch their connected car platform. Samuel Shen, Chief Operating Officer at the Microsoft Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group, revealed the company has created a prototype car powered by the Cortana virtual assistant. 

During his opening keynote speech at the TechDays Taiwan developer conference, Shen discussed cost being a previous barrier: “We have not launched similar...

Flash storage manufacturer SanDisk has announced a number of new solutions designed specifically for connected cars and automotive infotainment systems.

The automotive-grade NAND flash memory has been optimised to help bring about more reliable in-car applications, such as 3D mapping, navigation-based augmented reality, driver-assist technology and data event recorders.

SanDisk is offering an SD card and iNAND embedded flash drive product in a range of capacities rising to 64GB. Both are said to enable faster...

Asian web services company Baidu has revealed plans to compete with Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto in China with CarLife.

Hyundai has announced that it will be one of the first manufacturers to use the service after the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding and it is planning to embed the software in a Sonata sedan.

The ongoing wrangling between the Chinese government, Google and Apple over their systems is what led Hyundai to investigate Baidu’s carlife, according to...

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Google may have to skip the likes of Volkswagen, Daimler and Audi when looking for driverless partners if the German government has its way.

During a recent interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s transportation minister Alexander Dobrindt, spoke of a government initiative it was calling Digitales Testfeld Autobahn that would involve a stretch of smart highway in Bavaria.

Dobrindt, who may have concerns about the NSA tracking German citizens, revealed that...

Driverless vehicles are the talk of the automotive industry after busy CES and Detroit motor shows, but testing them in a safe environment, that can accurately replicate the challenges of road navigation, has been a challenge until now.

US education establishment, the University of Michigan, has released more information surrounding M-City, its ambitious project to create a detailed urban test area for driverless...

Back-seat drivers can be a real annoyance to drivers and Jaguar Land Rover appears to be drawing on this bothersome trait for its latest bicycle safety system.

Jaguar Land Rover has launched an array of new features to help reduce the 19,000 cyclists killed or injured on UK roads every year, with one solution likely to prove divisive among drivers.

Bike Sense, Jaguar’s new system for cyclist detection, can detect when a bike is coming up the road behind the car. Depending on whether the cyclist...