Tag: Automotive

I read recently that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak had lost hope about the promise of AI-powered autonomous vehicles.

Speaking at a conference in Barcelona, ‘Woz’ told the audience he didn’t think artificial intelligence will ever really be up to the task of powering self-driving vehicles.

“Artificial intelligence in cars is trained to spot everything that is normal on the roads, not something abnormal,” he said. “They aren’t going to be able to read the words on signs and know what they mean. I’ve really given up.”

Coming from a man who helped build one of the world’s most successful companies — and a company with a growing fleet of autonomous test vehicles — I couldn’t help but take notice.

Did his comments reveal something about Apple’s own autonomous vehicle strategy? When a visionary like Wozniak “gives up” on an emerging technology, does that mean we should too?

Self-driving hype

While I can only speculate about Apple’s plans for self-driving cars, I know Wozniak is far from the first person to express skepticism about autonomous vehicles.

From outright doomsday prognostications about the “death” of self-driving to Toyota Research Institute executives who “don’t by the hype” about the inevitable and imminent arrival of full autonomy, there are plenty of doubters out there.

But why are these voices starting to emerge now, right when it feels like there is so much momentum and excitement about the promise of autonomous vehicles?

If you ask me, this chorus of sober realists has always existed. And in some ways, I’m one of them.

While I certainly haven’t “given up” on autonomous driving, I’ve long had concerns that all the hype could have unintended, negative consequences that end up hurting drivers and the entire industry.

Autonomous driving realities

No, the movement of autonomous vehicle realists from the fringes to the front page isn’t a sign of the self-driving apocalypse. Rather, it’s simply a signal that autonomous driving is following a trajectory like many other emerging technologies before it.

Having drunk a few many cocktails spiked with turbo-charged tech euphoria, we are now waking up to a painful hangover of doubts, disillusionment, and diminished expectations.

While this descent was perhaps inevitable (and likely hasn’t been helped by the recent troubles of chief self-driving evangelist Elon Musk), it’s hardly cause for alarm.

In fact, it’s healthy and necessary.

Now that the party is over, everyone can now refocus their energy on the massive and incredibly demanding task of pushing the auto industry even further down the road to full autonomy, one careful step at a time.

Eye-tracking and driver awareness

As a first step, we need to get serious about educating consumers not only about the capabilities of autonomous driving systems, but also about their limitations. A recent report from the AAA in the US found that many drivers are woefully unaware of the limitations of various driver assistance technologies.

“There is a still a lot of work to be done in educating drivers about proper use of (advanced driver assistance systems) technologies and their limitations,” says Dr. David Yang, executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

I couldn’t agree more. And it looks like things are moving in the right direction.

Consumer Reports recently published its first ranking of automated driving systems – a key step toward improving driver understanding. Among other things, the tests looked at what the systems do to keep drivers engaged — an important signal to drivers that they do in fact still need to drive even if there is an increasing amount of whiz-bang tech to help them out.

(And I can’t say I was surprised to see the car that topped the ranking was the only one to feature an eye-tracking.)

Slope of Enlightenment

All of us in the auto tech industry have a responsibility to make the transition from semi-autonomous to fully-autonomous driving as safe and smooth as possible — especially as it becomes apparent this transition is likely to be a decades-long rather than years-long process.

Indeed, the road from SAE Level 2 to Level 5 is a lot longer than many were led to believe during the period of “peak hype”. That translates to hundreds of millions of vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems that nevertheless fall short of full autonomy.

Thankfully, technologies like the eye tracking systems developed by Smart Eye and other AI-powered driver monitoring systems can help recalibrate expectations, keep people safe, and rekindle a more informed enthusiasm for autonomous vehicles.

So, while many autonomous driving hopefuls may be suffering from a collective chill as we rush into Gartner’s “Trough of Disillusionment”, I’m confident the growing ranks of more informed consumers will see autonomous driving climbing up the Slope of Enlightenment before long.

Martin Krantz is founder and CEO of Smart Eye, a leading eye-tracking technology provider based in Gothenburg, Sweden.

There’s a lot of talk these days about China. And as the CEO of an auto industry software provider, I too find myself thinking a lot about China and its emergence as a key market and development hub for smart vehicles.

Every year, roughly 24 million cars and more than four million commercial vehicles are sold in China, making it the world’s largest market for new vehicles. Numbers like that are enough to warrant the attention of any auto industry executive. However, I’m more concerned with a smaller, but arguably much more important number: 700.

That’s the estimated number of people who die every day in China due to traffic accidents – more than 250,000 annually. That’s like having half my hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden disappear each year. Even after adjusting for China’s outsized population, the country’s 18.8 traffic fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants is more than double that of Europe (9.3) and more than four times greater than Japan (4.1).

Making roads safer with eye-tracking

Now China’s roads may not be the world’s most dangerous, but I still find these figures frightening – and unacceptable. So I was thrilled when I learned that Chinese authorities had decided to take action to combat the problem. And when it emerged that one of the first measures would be to promote driver monitoring systems on both new and existing vehicles, I knew our company had a role to play.

Ever since founding Smart Eye 20 years ago, I’ve been motivated by a desire to help make our roads safer by developing and deploying a driver monitoring system (DMS) that relies on eye-tracking technology to reduce the dangers that come with distracted driving.

So far, Smart Eye has focused on working directly with manufacturers to integrate DMSs into new vehicles. Our technology can already be found on 45 new car models at various stages of development. And while this approach remains the primary foundation of our business strategy, I felt we had both a moral and business imperative to consider how Smart Eye could complement its existing approach in order to capitalize on the unique aftermarket opportunity presented by China’s new regulations.

We had to ask ourselves, where could we do the most good?

It quickly became apparent that the answer to that question – both in terms of road safety and Smart Eye’s continued growth – was China. Only by quickly committing additional resources to China could we reap the full benefits of what will no doubt be a limited, but nonetheless massive opportunity to equip potentially tens of millions of vehicles with DMSs – and potentially save tens of thousands of lives.

Smart AI: capturing the opportunity

And so a couple of weeks ago at CES Asia we launched Smart AI, a standalone DMS featuring technology initially developed for European premium car makers that’s been adapted to the China commercial vehicles market.

With Smart AI, Smart Eye is expanding from being primarily a DMS software provider to also being a provider of DMS hardware that meets China’s new regulatory requirements for buses and long-haul trucks.

Quickly adapting to regulatory changes in this huge market with a new product will provide Smart Eye with additional revenue, market penetration, and critical AI learnings that will also strengthen our ability to serve customers in Europe and elsewhere.

There’s no escaping China’s growing importance to the global auto industry – considering the scale of the market as well as planned infrastructure investments, advances in China will likely be faster than more established markets like Europe and the United States.

Saving as many lives as possible

China is also emerging as a hotbed for AI development, with a number of stakeholders expressing an interest in the type of advanced AI solutions that are Smart Eye’s specialty. It’s therefore natural for us to extend our footprint beyond Silicon Valley and compliment it with a strengthened presence in China.

Smart Eye’s further expansion into China doesn’t mean we will lose focus on the European or US market or our continued efforts to work directly with car makers to deliver integrated DMS solutions. They are still critical for our success. Rather, Smart Eye’s additional investment in China and the launch of Smart AI will accelerate DMS adoption to unprecedented levels and at a much faster pace than could be achieved in other markets.

But more importantly, it will help Smart Eye save as many lives as possible as quickly as possible, while at the same time strengthening our ability to save more lives in other parts of the world and create a sustainable business that can help save lives for generations to come.

Martin Krantz is founder and CEO of Smart Eye, a leading eye-tracking technology provider based in Gothenburg, Sweden

20 years of innovation 

Since the start in 1999 Smart Eye has established itself as a significant and leading player within measurement of eye movements. At the same time, it is my firm belief that we have only seen the beginning of what eye tracking can do to help us in our daily lives. For a start, the technology is now built into cars and research laboratories but it will soon be an integrated part of every imaginable context and feel just as natural as cameras in mobile phones. This journey started in Sweden 20 years ago but has only just begun. As so many times before, a Swedish company has managed to carve out a niche for itself as a leader within an expansive area of technology. This is an expression of the country’s proud engineering traditions, fearless entrepreneurial spirit and outstanding university education programmes which time after time create globally competitive technology companies.

Research Instruments

The business area for research applications does not live on its own merits. It also contributes to the exploration of exciting new market segments. The products are included as validation tools in series production projects and help to advance the technical front line for what can be achieved with eye tracking.

The first quarter started slowing but ended on a strong note. Sales grew by 95% compared with the corresponding quarter last year. The strengthened product range is actively marketed towards its intended customer groups. This means that the core segments, automotive and aviation, are both growing. We are proud to present new customers, including Canadian National Defence as well as several vehicle manufacturers in Asia and Europe. We intend to consolidate this growth journey within all geographies and customer segments through continued aggressive product development, marketing and strong partnerships with key players in the market.

Automotive Solutions

The market for Automotive Solutions remains very strong and activities have actually exceeded our already high expectations. This is evident from an additional number of design wins to date but to an even greater extent in ongoing procurement processes which are expected to be announced during the current year. Smart Eye continues to be very strong in global competition for deals which are no longer confined to premium cars but increasingly moving towards the mass market with imminent high-volume projects. Our strategy is successful and our offering is powerful in all geographies. This can be seen in particular from our successes in the demanding Korean market which is known for its high quality requirements. A number of procurement processes are now underway in Asia, Europe and North America which will be decided during the current year and where we expect to defend our clearly market-leading position within driver monitoring.

Furthermore, activity in the regulatory area in Europe has increased significantly with the European Parliament recently voting through legislation which, subject to approval in all instances, will come into force as early as 2022 with full impact two years later, and will result in driver monitoring in all new cars sold in Europe. Euro NCAP has included driver monitoring in its 2025 Roadmap which in itself is expected to stimulate all European manufacturers. This means that the market, legislators and voluntary classification organisations collaborate to improve safety in the vehicle fleet, which suits Smart Eye very well. We expect that the American market will follow the same path shortly. Taken together, all this means that the major market potential that we have identified for some time has now become increasingly tangible and shifted closer in time. To meet this increased activity and fully capitalise on our market-leading positon, we have for some time been recruiting a number of talented employees of the highest quality. We now see a continued need to recruit and invest in the business in order to maintain our leading position and thus ensure our growth potential in the longer term.

Market development in China

Legislators in China are expected to demand driver monitoring systems in vehicles which has already pushed market players into action. This is not confined to new cars but will also apply to existing ones which opens up major opportunities in the commercial aftermarket. In recent years, Chinese car companies have advanced their positions within technology-heavy areas such as vehicle-related AI and electric drivetrains. Lead times are considerably shorter than in the more traditional markets in the West, which among other things means that pre-developed standard solutions are often preferred.

Smart Eye has been monitoring developments in China closely for some time and in view of the major market potential and our market-leading position within eye tracking, decided to evaluate this opportunity in a more focused context. This means that the existing software-based business model may be supplemented to be adapted to the needs of the Chinese market.

Martin Krantz is co-founder and CEO of Smart Eye, a leading eye-tracking technology provider based in Gothenburg, Sweden.

European parliamentary elections are just around the corner. And it seems like everyone’s talking about the EU much more than usual.