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Continental's new dynamic mapping system, eHorizon, promises to alert drivers to hazards across their line of sight. It volition build on information gleaned from cars alee that is sent via smartphone to the cloud, then passed on to nearby vehicles. Information technology may as well help drivers save fuel. Continental says eHorizon will come to market place in 2018 or 2019.

eHorizon, in its current state at to the lowest degree, doesn't enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications. That requires Wi-Fi-like transponders in cars, something that is years away. But today, just well-nigh everyone has a smartphone, something eHorizon could leverage quickly.

Continental e-Horizon city view

Cars alee get the eyes for cars backside

Continental describes eHorizon as a dynamic map system — equally in freshly updated, not just a moving map. Car navigation today tin can prove slow-moving traffic and accidents as map overlays with estimated delay times. Continental says eHorizon provides more item that'south closer to real fourth dimension. When a car ahead reacts to something unusual about the driving situation, that data is sent via the cellular network to the cloud, where it'south combined with other reports, if any, on that specific traffic state of affairs. It also includes data from traffic menses generally and mid-term traffic issues such as a lane closure or construction.

Continental has demonstrated eHorizon recently on a specially outfitted Cadillac CT6. It receives a signal indicating a route take a chance, at which bespeak a alarm light illuminates on the nuance, and the car's navigation map and/or multi-information display in the instrument cluster counts down the altitude.

eHorizon stems from a 2013 partnership amongst Continental, Cisco, and IBM, later joined by Here, the Chicago mapping firm formerly called Navteq and at present held past Audi (VW Group), BMW, and Daimler.

Continental e-Horizon 48V car

What else eHorizon tin can do

Continental says eHorizon can provide dynamic data, specific by lane, encompassing posted and actual speeds, traffic lights, construction areas, and obstacles in the road or at the side of the route (such as an emergency vehicle, which in many states now requires drivers to motion one lane over). Information technology's possible eHorizon could take cues from a preceding vehicle's equipment status. If several cars ahead have their wipers on, it might be a cloudburst; if several cars appoint stability command, there might exist ice on the road or span; if there'due south sudden braking, at that place could be a car stalled in a travel lane.

For fuel savings, Continental says in a test with static maps (no existent fourth dimension overlays), and cognition of the terrain and of a specific vehicle's capabilities lets eHorizon suggest the proper gear to be in. On commercial vehicles, this yielded a three% savings.

Continental also has a 48-volt Eco Drive hybrid-electrical bulldoze system that splits the difference (in operation and price) between 12 volt stop-start systems and conventional hybrids with 200-plus-volt bulldoze systems. eHorizon would engage, disengage, or more lightly / heavily stress the electrical drivetrain if, say, the automobile knew a long downhill was coming upward and so could drain the battery just before regenerating battery power going downhill.

This volition not amuse Google

If some of this sounds like what Waze does, for free, you're right. Continental is banking on providing more than and better information. Continental is a huge technology company with $43 billion in revenues last year, simply the owner of Waze since 2013 is Alphabet (Google), the world's third biggest company with its ain plans for navigation.

For real-time traffic information, mapping, and hazard avoidance to work, at that place has to exist common ground among vendors. There certainly can't be multiple V2V systems that are incompatible, and it seems unlikely a single vendor could grow and so large information technology can accept its individual, unshared cache of traffic data be more accurate than anybody else combined. It will help if governments create smart traffic lights and other signals whose status is freely broadcast online, just in the meantime, that could be captured by in-motorcar cameras. That kind of data is necessary for self-driving cars. eHorizon is a waypoint toward V2V and V2I (vehicle to infrastructure) systems needed for autonomous driving and and so-chosen smart cities.