Archive for Cars

| June 18, 2011
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GM to Build New Data Center in Michigan

GM to Build New Data Center in MichiganDetroit Michigan based automaker General Motors (GM) will invest $130 million to build an enterprise data center at the GM Technical Center, in Warren, MI reports Data Center Knowledge. According to the article the new data center, the Information Technology Operations and Command Center, will allow GM to cut operating costs. The savings will come from consolidating GM global IT infrastructure into a more efficient facility.

GM said it will renovate and expand the former Cadillac administrative building on its Warren Tech Center campus. Design is underway on the renovation and construction, with the last phase scheduled for completion in 2015. The project is expected to create 25 high-tech jobs. InformationWeek says the state-of-the-art center will allow GM to merge tech operations spread across many sites into a single facility, reduce IT operating costs, and cut energy consumption by 40%. The company expects the data center to meet requirements for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S Green Building Council.

Michigan to be center of GM IT

DCK reports the new enterprise data center will use a “modular design” to allow for future expansion. Data Center Modular designs often use factory-built structures, but the term is increasingly being used to describe phased build-outs using pods of raised-floor space. The facility will contain IT laboratories to run computer simulations for vehicle designs. It will also serve as a hub for monitoring GM’s digital applications globally. “The Enterprise Data Center will contain technology laboratories and a global information technology operations center that will serve as the hub for monitoring General Motors information technology applications around the world,” GM Vice President and chief information officer Terry Kline told reporters.

GM Enterprise Data Center at Warren tech Center

New GM Enterprise Data Center at Warren Tech Center

“This new facility and other GM data centers around the world support the tools the company needs to design, build and sell the world’s best vehicles through digital applications enabling all business functions,” said Mr. Kline. “This investment is possible because of the cooperation between GM, the Warren community, and the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA). We think the result is a win for everybody involved.”

The automaker received a tax credit from MEGA to support the $130 million redevelopment of the computer center. The Warren city council unanimously approved a brownfield redevelopment plan for space at the sprawling Technical Center campus.

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A few years back,  I worked for about 18 months at the Tech Center, at the Vehicle Engineering Center (VEC). The best part of the job was going over to the Cadillac building for lunch. I recall the cafeteria having leather walls and real china with the Cadillac logo.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Cars | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| May 10, 2011
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Wireless Electricity for Car Charging Coming

Wireless Electricity for Car Charging ComingThomas Lee at Xconomy reports that Delphi and WiTricity of Watertown, MA demo’d a wireless  electricity charging system for cars at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) annual World conference in Detroit. The demo was the result of a seven-month partnership between the firms to use WiTricity’s technology to wirelessly transmit electricity via magnetic waves to charge electric cars.

Delphi logoThe charging system developed by Delphi and WiTricity would enable cars powered with electricity to reboot without having to plug into a power source via a cord according to Xconomy. It would only need cars to park over a wireless electrcity source on the floor of a garage or embedded in a paved parking spot, which would then transfer the power to the vehicle’s battery charger.

WiTricity, founded by MIT physics professor Marin Soljacic in 2007, has designed a transmission coil that connects to a small electronics module and converts the traditional electric current found in a home or office to a higher frequency and voltage, to create an oscillating magnetic field around the coil. The article says if a separate coil designed to resonate to the same frequency is close enough to the source, power is transferred between the two coils.

The article quotes Mr. Sumner who says the prototype generates about 95 percent efficiency, meaning only five percent of the power being generated gets lost in transmission. Delphi hopes all cars equipped with the technology will get at least 90 percent. The pad powering the Chevy prototype was transmitting about 2.6 kW, or 16 amps, of electricity, about the equivalent of Delphi’s current Level 2 wired chargers.

Randy Sumner Delphi’s director of global hybrid vehicle business development says WiTricity’s technology enabled Delphi to design much smaller coils and achieve greater distance between the bottom of the car and the charging pad. In theory, this could allow bigger trucks and vehicles to also use the technology. In an interview, Andrew Brown, Delphi’s executive director, and chief technologist says wireless charging will go a long way to boosting the popularity of electric cars. Wireless charging pads could be installed in home garages, parking lots, offices, shopping centers, he says.

“It will eliminate this range anxiety,” says Mr. Brown, referring to consumers who worry they will run out of juice before finding the next charging station. Also, he says, “The average consumer is not accustomed to electric cars. [They worry] ‘Am I going to get dirty?’ or “Will I get electrocuted?’” Wireless charging helps with both those issues. All consumers have to do is “park and charge,” Mr. Sumner says in the article.

The author notes that Delphi still faces a long road from lab prototype to mass production. The company needs to work with OEMs to figure out how to best integrate WiTricity’s technology into cars. Delphi envisions a car that can be charged both by wired and wireless charging stations. The company also needs to find ways to shrink the electronics and reduce overall cost. Delphi officials estimate the first cars using it will roll off the assembly lines in 2014 or 2015. “This is real,” Mr. Sumner says. “This works.”

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The idea of wireless electricity is not new. I have followed wireless electricity since 2008, here and here. Look Ma! No wires!

What do you think?

Can a car be wirelessly charged like an iPod?

 

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Cars | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
| April 23, 2011
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Car Tech

Car TechThe self-interests of the auto industry and the electronics industry have aligned. The car has become the ultimate mobile computing platform. The carmakers and OEMs have begun competing to add better Internet-computing applications. These are some of the most interesting to me.

Ford Seeks to Make Cars That Talk to Each Other

Ford logoXconomy Detroit reports that Ford Motor Company (F) based in Dearborn, MI is designing vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems designed to prevent accidents. Ford’s “intelligent” vehicles can wirelessly transmit data between each other, such as location, speed, proximity, and brake status. Guided by sensors and cameras, the system can alert drivers to nearby accidents, or signal if they risk colliding with another vehicle at an intersection. “It’s like having a 360-degree pair of eyes,” says Mike Shulman, technical leader for Ford Research and Advanced Engineering.

Ford’s goal is to have intelligent cars on the road by 2016. “We kind of like to get it out as soon as we can,” Mr. Shulman says. CBS News reports that Ford’s demonstration vehicles will hit the road this spring, starting at major technology hubs across the country.

Ford’s work is part of an effort spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Transportation called IntelliDrive (Which I first wrote about in 2009). IntelliDrive’s goal is to develop a common communications platform for all vehicles to talk to each other, using 3G and 4G broadband technologies. IntelliDrive also envisions building infrastructure across the country that allows cars to “communicate” with roads, highways, and bridges, exchanging information on traffic patterns, road conditions, and weather. “IntelliDrive will help drivers bypass congestion, and it will cut crashes by providing advanced safety warnings,” according to a report by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), a research group based in Ann Arbor, MI. “It will even be able to take over the vehicle when there is not enough time for the driver to react.”

Eventually, the technology could lead to cars that drive themselves, Mr. Shulman says. Google (GOOG) is already testing such a car.

Microsoft Wants to Be in Your Car

Microsoft logoRon Miller at Internet Evolution recently posted an article that shows how Microsoft‘s (MSFT) reputation in the auto industry has changed. Several years ago, there was a joke being emailed around about what would happen if Microsoft built cars the way it built Windows. At the 2011 CeBIT technology fair, there were examples of Microsoft in cars according to Mr. Miller.

The author points out that MSFT was showing off a Microsoft-centric, fully electric Smart Car with its control center as an app on your Windows 7 phone and not on the dash. The WP7 devices would display metrics such as the amount of power left in your battery, the expected distance you can travel for the amount of power on your battery, even the distances based on current battery life that are safe to reach, possible to reach, and questionable — all color-coded on a Bing map. Since it’s a phone the car can be monitored from anywhere there is a cell signal.

The Internet Evolution article points out a second example of bringing Microsoft to the car. At CeBIT, Ford (F) CEO Alan Mulally was touting Ford SYNC, powered by Microsoft, the communications solution now being installed in Ford cars. Mr. Mulally wants to see the Ford automobiles be the “ultimate mobile device” according to the article.

Mr. Mulally described a system based on Microsoft’s next-gen unified communications product Lync using Nuance (NUAN) voice recognition to enable users to interact with the car and the mobile telephone sitting in the car’s cradle via voice commands, letting drivers keep both hands on the wheel while accessing features. It will also eventually offer direct access to emergency services, not a call center as with GM’s (GM) OnStar service.

Mr. Mulally says Ford made a conscious decision not to embed the Microsoft Lync system with the car’s other systems. He was careful to point out that the systems that run the car are separated from Lync by a firewall. The author says that most of us who have used Microsoft software appreciate that separation continues I don’t think we are ready to go there just yet.

Automakers Want Vehicles Talk to Each Other

Talking carsThe Detroit Bureau reports that a consortium of eight manufacturers has set up shop in Farmington Hills, MI to work on car-to-car “Intelligent Vehicle” communications systems that would help stave off accidents. “If every car had it, it would be like another pair of eyes,” Ford Motor Co.’s (F) Mike Shulman, a technical research leader, stated.

The technology consortium would work to supplement, not replace, other high-tech safety systems. While Ford and others have worked on car-to-car communications systems for a number of years, the consortium reflects the fact that vehicles from different brands must be able to speak the same digital language. “We need to get messages from Hondas, Hyundais, Kias and send them all messages,” said Mr. Shulman.

Each of the eight makers will build eight new vehicles each equipped with the latest technology. Another 2,000 vehicles on the road will be retrofitted with the gear as part of a test program partly funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Transportation experts suggest Intelligent Vehicle systems could also move cars closer to an era of autonomous driving, where motorists would simply plug in a destination and settle back and text or make calls or reading the paper, on put on makeup since the vehicle itself would handle the driving duties.

Autonomous Road Trains

Road trainTraffic Technology Today, reported in January 2011 that the EU-financed SARTRE project has carried out the first successful demonstration of its vehicle platooning technology at the Volvo Proving Ground in Sweden. Vehicle platooning is a convoy of vehicles, where a driver in a lead vehicle drives a line of other vehicles.

SARTRE will use a forward-looking camera and 76 GHz radar. Each vehicle must also be equipped with a local control system. To achieve global control over the platoon, a communication system, probably using the 5.9 GHz radio channel would interconnect the vehicles.

Project backers say that platooning is designed to improve and cut fuel consumption and CO2 emissions while it reduces traffic congestion.

The technology development is underway but public acceptance of the system and legislation by 25 EU governments will likely hinder acceptance for a while.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Cars | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
| March 19, 2011
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Car Technology

GM Ventures Invests in Powermat

GM logoXconomy – Detroit reports that GM Ventures, the Detroit -based car maker’s venture capital arm has invested $5 million in Powermat the Commerce Township, MI start-up. A multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal with Powermat gives General Motors (GM) exclusive rights to place the company’s portable-device charging technology in its cars for a year. according to Micky Bly, the company’s director of hybrid vehicles. The Chevy Volt and certain Cadillac models will be the first GM cars to the Powermat accessories. The New York Times reports that at this year’s CES GM demonstrated four wireless charging positions in the Chevy Volt.

GM Ventures has also invested in Indiana-based electric car startup Bright Automotive and Ann Arbor-based battery developer Sakti3. Also, see this earlier post.

Car Theft by Antenna

Keyless entryMIT’s Technology Review reports that researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have successfully attacked passive keyless entry and start systems from eight different car manufacturers’. The researchers examined 10 car models from eight manufacturers. They were able to take all 10 by intercepting and relaying signals from the cars to their wireless keys because the key transmits its signals up to around 100 meters. The attack works no matter what cryptography and protocols the key and car use to communicate with each other.

The researchers tested a few scenarios. An attacker could watch a parking lot and have an accomplice watch as car owners entered a nearby store. The accomplice would only need to be within eight meters of the targeted owner’s key fob, making it easy to avoid arousing suspicion. In another scenario, a car owner might leave a car key on a table near a window. An antenna placed outside the house was able to communicate with the key, allowing the researchers then to start the car parked out front and drive away.

The researchers concluded that manufacturers will need to add secure technology that allows the car to confirm that the key is in fact nearby.

New Standard for Automotive-Grade Wireless Modules

Connected carSierra Wireless (SWIR) recently introduced what the firm calls, the industry’s first suite of embedded wireless technology modules designed specifically for automotive manufacturers. The Canadian firm is banking on the emerging trend to include telematics, infotainment, navigation assistance, and remote diagnostics in new cars within the next few years according to an article on ITNewsLink.com. The firm believes these applications will need reliable built-in connections to cellular networks. The new Sierra Wireless modules will use 2G and 3G network technologies and frequency bands used worldwide to provide the connectivity customers are demanding.

The manufacturer says these units are the first wireless modules developed from the ground up to achieve compliance with automotive specifications.  ITNewsLink.com says the Sierra Wireless AirPrime AR Series design encompasses:

  • Tolerance for up to 1,000 thermal shock cycles
  • Full certification with ISO 9001:2000 quality standards and ISO/TS 16949:2002 manufacturing processes
  • Extended operating temperature range from -40 to 85 degrees Celsius
  • Compliance with multiple automotive manufacturing and quality processes including AQPQ, PPAP, PCN, and 8D
  • Solder-down form factor and optional Embedded SIM to create a more reliable and less expensive solution
  • An open platform for custom application development, including dedicated APIs for telematics applications.

Wireless Car Sensors Vulnerable to Hackers

Wireless Car Sensors Vulnerable to HackersMIT’s Technology Review reports that hackers could “hijack” the wireless pressure sensors built into many cars’ tires, researchers have found. Criminals might then track a vehicle or force its electronic control system to malfunction, the University of South Carolina and Rutgers University researchers say. The team successfully hijacked two popular tire-pressure-monitoring systems (TPMS).

As automakers add more technology and computers to cars and connect those computers to critical components, in-car systems will need to be secured against hackers, experts warn.

The systems tested by the South Carolina-Rutgers team had very little security in place–they mainly relied on the communications protocol is not widely published. “In doing TPMS this way, [automakers] have left the door open to wireless attackers,” says Travis Taylor, one of the researchers. The team could eavesdrop on communications and, in some circumstances, alter messages in transit. That let the team give false readings to a car’s dashboard. They could also track a vehicle’s movements using the unique IDs of the pressure sensors, and even cause a car’s ECU to fail completely.

“Normally, these [attacks would] result in small problems,” Mr. Taylor says. “But I see practical danger and damage that can happen from TPMS exploitation.” “The security and privacy problems that the researchers identify in TPMS systems are likely just one among many that will challenge the automotive industry in the years to come,” says Stefan Savage, a UC San Diego professor of computer science and engineering.

Ford Installs Sync Software via Wi-Fi

Ford Installs Sync Software via Wi-FiThe Detroit Bureau reports that Ford is the first automaker to use Wi-Fi to send software to vehicles along an assembly line. The automaker is sending infotainment software to Wi-Fi enabled MyFord Touch-equipped vehicles like the Edge.

Ford installed  Wi-Fi technology at its Oakville, Ontario, plant where it builds the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX. Next up for Wi-Fi updates will be the upcoming Ford Explorer, built in Chicago, and then plants that build the Focus around the world.

Wi-Fi capability eliminates the need for building, stocking multiple SYNC hardware modules, thus reducing manufacturing complexity and saving cost.  “Using wireless software installation via Wi-Fi, we can stock just one type of SYNC module powering MyFord Touch and loaded with a basic software package,” explained Sukhwinder Wadhwa, SYNC global platform manager. “We eliminate around 90 unique part numbers, each of which would have to be updated every time a change is made – this system really boosts quality control.”

“Turning an assembly plant – with steel beams everywhere and high-voltage cabling throughout; everything you could imagine that would interfere with a radio signal – into an access point that would achieve 100 percent success was a huge challenge,” Mr. Wadhwa said.

Related articles

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Cars | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| February 19, 2011
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Hackers Can Target Cars

Hackers Can Target CarsWired reports that over 100 drivers in Austin, TX found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control. This happened after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system called Webtech Plus (PDF). Webtech Plus is normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments. The app is operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies system. It allows car dealers to install a black box in the vehicle that responds to commands issued through a central website and relayed over a wireless pager network.

How he got in

Austin police claim the perpetrator was Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid-off. The hacker allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the Austin-area dealership. Reportedly Mr. Ramos-Lopez’s account was closed when he was terminated but he allegedly got in through another employee’s account. At first, the intruder targeted specific customers. The attacker later moved to access the database of all 1,100 customers whose cars were equipped with the device. It is charged that he went through the database, vandalizing the records, disabling the cars, and setting off the horns.

Cars are targets

The Webtech attack was an external attack but Bob Brammer, CTO, and VP at Northrop Grumman Information Systems (NOC)  told GovInfo Security that cars themselves are likely to become targets. Mr. Brammer points out that most cars contain 50 to 100 or more tiny computers. The computers are controlled by over 100 megabytes of code that control the accelerator, brakes, displays, steering, etc. All of these systems can be accessed through a diagnostic port that serves as the vehicles’ USB port. Mr. Brammer cites a study published in an IEEE journal. “It’s possible to take over a car, controlling the brakes, the accelerator, the steering wheel, despite whatever the driver might want to do. Our automobiles are highly vulnerable from a cybersecurity view.”

The paper, Experimental Security Analysis of a Modern Automobile, (PDF) says the potential attack window could widen as more automakers offer vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications networks to third-party development, “An attacker who is able to infiltrate almost any electronic control unit can leverage this ability to completely circumvent a broad array of safety-critical systems.”  GigaOm cites data from iSuppli that Wi-Fi in automobiles will be integrated into 7.2 million cars by 2017.

The researchers said they took control of a number of the car’s functions and the driver could do nothing about it. They bypassed basic network security protections within the car. They then embedded malicious code in the telematics unit to erase evidence of the hack’s presence after a crash.

More theoretical than practical

I luv your PCMr. Brammer, for now, sees the threat to cars as more theoretical than practical. But he says it demonstrates that we must think about cyber-security more broadly than we have in the past. “As the trend is to put more IT into everything that we do – whether it’s cars, airplanes, power grids, water supplies, whatever – we have to think about the security aspects of the design. These systems, within reason, have to be able to withstand certain types of attempts to attack or exploit them. That’s a terrible thing have to say, but I think that’s the way world is these day.”

Wi-Fi can give attackers an entry point into critical systems. Professor Stefan Savage of the University of California, San Diego told Technology Review. “In a lot of car architectures, all the computers are interconnected, so that having taken over one component, there’s a substantive risk that you could take over all the rest of them. Once you’re in, you’re in.” This could lead to brakes failing or the steering wheel seizing on scores if not hundreds of cars simultaneously, causing catastrophic crashes.

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Cars have become more computerized. They are linked through Wi-Fi and 3G networks making our daily transportation vulnerable to hackers and cyber-attacks. Cyber-terrorists could target cars to begin the chain of events leading to a Hollywood-style disaster. Hopefully, the Auto manufacturers are going to tighten up the security of our cars. They will delay improving security if safety belts and airbags are examples.

Will the auto industry tighten the security onboard cars?

Will the government have to step in?

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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