Now everything will go very fast: On Tuesday, Intel first sealed the takeover of the Israeli high-tech camera company Mobileye for 15.3 billion dollars. On Wednesday, the US chip company presented its master plan for the autonomous future. It is planned to test a hundred driverless vehicles in the USA, Israel and Europe.
The equipment of the cars should correspond to the standard 4. This is almost the royal class – the technology enables driving without any human help. Cars without a human driver, level 5, do not yet exist. There is insufficient test and experience as well as the legal basis.
The eyes of the cars finally come together with the brain: Intel combines cameras and object recognition software of the new subsidiary Mobileye with its own sensors and chips, announces the Samsung’s second-largest chip maker in the world. Added to this is Ericsson’s network technology and navigation from Here.
The goal is a technology platform, which can be customized by customers, car manufacturers and suppliers. According to Mobileye co-founder Amnon Shashua, Intel will convert cars from different manufacturers and brands to show how the solution can be adapted to different customer requirements.
Worldwide test drives are also important, because each region has its own road conditions or signposting. Google has only tested its vehicles in California. Supervision authorities around the world are also to be approached.
For Intel, it is a catch-up. Chip competitor Nvidia, not Intel, is currently the hottest chip maker in Silicon Valley. Nvidia chips drive supercomputers, run bitcoins in day and night mode, run cloud data centers, and plug in self-running test vehicles, for example from Audi . It’s about a lot of money: A “Passenger Economy” will replace today’s “auto industry”, Intel is safe and speaks in a study of a seven-billion-dollar market.
Already in May, Intel celebrated the opening of its research area for autonomous driving technology in San Jose, California. In a large garage were converted Ford models and a flown test car from Munich. The German environmental label still adhered to the windshield, but the characteristics were already Californian. BMW will be testing independent cars based on Intel and Mobileye technology in Munich’s city center this year.
