Digital lifestyle and vehicle safety trends will drive interior electronics, says Continental

Continental's Interior Division is focused on partnering with its customers and non-traditional automotive suppliers to design intelligent electronics that will enable a car and its users to be "always-on". The division designs products that give consumers the ability to enter and start their car at the push of a button, connect to the outside world to access the information they need, all while enhancing driver focus through intuitive human machine interfaces (HMIs).

Continental has launched its hands-free communication systems with four customers and on five vehicle lines in China.

Next week at Auto China in Beijing, Continental will demonstrate how its next-generation system, which utilises Mandarin voice recognition technology, will make hands-free calling even easier. Later this year, the company plans to demonstrate how Mandarin text-to-speech technology will enable a car to read short text messages to a driver, and enable the driver to use voice commands to play or manage digital music inside the car.

Continental is a strong supporter of the European Commission's eCall initiative, which, when implemented, will provide a wireless "life line" to emergency assistance by transmitting important accident data to authorities to help facilitate an emergency response during the critical seconds after an accident.

The Telematics Control Unit that Continental has supplied to General Motors for more than ten years has enabled OnStar® to provide safety and security for drivers and passengers in North America.

Continental also is actively participating in a four-year field trial in Germany, known as SIM-TD, to investigate how car-to-car and car-to-roadside communication systems could reduce traffic congestion and enhance vehicle safety.

"I believe that the digital lifestyles we are leading, combined with vehicle safety trends, will continue to transform in-vehicle electronic architectures and evolve the cars we drive into the most reliable, high-tech electronics device we own," Matschi concluded.

Continental is one of the platinum sponsors of Telematics Detroit 2008.

Brian Droessler (director) and Herbert Halamek (vice president of business development & strategy) of Continental's Connectivity business unit are both on the speaker line-up at Telematics Detroit 2008.