V2X heads east Weekly Brief—3.19.2012

In this week's Brief: DENSO Corporation, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, ITS Japan, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Pioneer Corp, Viktoria Institute, Volvo Cars, Ericsson, Göteborg Energi, ABI Research, Navmii, and Yandex

DENSO Corporation says it will begin testing vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) technology on public roads in China starting March 22. DENSO V2X technology will be used to wirelessly communicate the vehicle position and speed of emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire engines to surrounding vehicles and roadside infrastructure.

When an emergency vehicle is approaching, the technology will change the traffic light at intersections and alert surrounding vehicles to switch lanes.

The experiments are intended to give the right of way to authority vehicles in case of emergency and to help prevent vehicle collisions, as well as pave the way for broader V2X deployment. DENSO has been conducting field tests in Japan, the United States and Europe for the past several years.

“Due to the rapid increase in vehicles on China's roads, chronic congestion and safety are the two largest issues, particularly in the larger cities,” says Yasushi Yamanaka, DENSO's executive director in charge of the Engineering Research & Development Center.

Elsewhere in China, China Telecom, the nation’s third largest carrier, released the iPhone 4S on its network. That makes three carriers in China offering the iPhone.

China Unicom, China’s second largest carrier, launched the 4S in January, and China Mobile, the nation’s largest carrier, boasts 54 million 3G subscribers, plus 600 million other subscribers.

As smartphone penetration and integration into Chinese vehicles increases, the iPhone wars in China are bound to intensify.

ITS Japan, a nonprofit focused on R&D in road transportation systems, announced a preparatory initiative that will help guide vehicles to safety during natural disasters, like the 2011 tsunami or earthquakes that seismologists have forecast to strike under Tokyo Bay.

The plan is to establish a repository of online road maps built from traffic information that OEMs collect for members-only services and send to in-car navigation systems. Toyota, Nissan, and Honda announced support, along with navigation manufacturer Pioneer Corp.

The Viktoria Institute, with support from Volvo Cars, Göteborg Energi, and Ericsson, announced a cross-industry platform that aims to digitize the charging infrastructure for electric vehicle car owners.

The platform will harness existing mobile networks and the grid and envisions an electricity meter in the vehicle that allows control of charging, either immediately or on a schedule set by the driver, with the costs being allocated against the driver’s bill.

Stakeholders say the platform will increase usability for drivers and help build an ecosystem that makes it easier to deploy electric cars around the world.

ABI Research forecast that 89 million people around the globe will subscribe to insurance telematics by 2017. That equates to a CAGR of 90 percent from 1.85 million in 2010.

The firm attributes the growth to a renewed interest in the insurance telematics model as well as a shift from pay as you drive (PAYD) to pay how you drive (PHYD) models built around continuous monitoring and analysis of driver behavior.

Navmii reached 5.5 million users for its turn-by-turn mobile navigation app, Navfree. The free service works by collecting community-gather map data from Openstreetmap and internally checking that against the software’s built-in reporting tool.

The app witnessed an influx of half a million users in January. Navfree is available in the Android and iPhone mobile app markets.

Yandex launch Navigator, a free mobile application for drivers in Russia and Ukraine. The app provides regularly updated maps, a route planner using real-time traffic information, and a route guidance system.

Navigator obtains current traffic information from the Yandex.Traffic service. Currently, Navigator has detailed maps of more than 500 cities in Russia and Ukraine and is available for most Russian and Ukrainian cities with a population of more than 200,000.

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