State of ADAS: Dangerous
Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are systems within a vehicle that help the driver while they are on the road. While made with the hopes for a safer commute for all drivers, as with everything in life there needs to be room for error. Our founder writes about his experience with ADAS, the recent problem he has discovered, and how he views it as dangerous to allow this breakdown in process and control on something that was built on process and control.
From the article:
Last month I had an interesting ADAS experience while calibrating a 2018 Toyota Prius. I was attempting to calibrate the cruise control module, after it had been replaced from a front end collision. Before we even start, we're going to take a frame of reference of some things. The vehicle belongs to an existing customer, the vehicle was repaired at a body shop that we regularly deal with, and this isn't our first ADAS calibration.
While performing this calibration, we actually had the vehicle fail calibration according to the Techstream software. However, the vehicle saved the calibration and acted as if it had passed. So, a vehicle that actually failed it's calibration, acted like a vehicle that had passed.
While, for the most part, ADAS has helped reduce human error from the roads as much as possible there still is room for improvement. Hopefully these brands will create a patch for their technological hiccups to even further driver safety, click the button below to read the entire article.
Adults Spent Even More Time on Their Phones in 2019
Over the last decade there has been an exponential drop off in newspaper, magazine, and television consumption and a spike in the use of mobile internet and streaming services. The practicality is there but, with these new technologies you sacrifice interpersonal communication and lose a connection to the world around you. This has been noticed by some of the worlds leaders in tech, like Apple and Google, who have tried to help curb this obsessive attachment we have gained to our devices. From attempts to display your phone usage to showing how much time you spend on it to even offering the ability to snooze your apps so you don't obsessively use them, these companies tried to help stop the steady increase in phone use.
This attempt was unfortunately to no avail as adults spent an additional 20 minutes more on their phones this past year than they did in the year before that. With mobile devices going nowhere the question now is raised as to how this is going to affect us all as a collect in the future.
TRIVIA
Which city in the United States has the worst Traffic?
Read to the end to find out the answer.
Around the Industry: Germany's Global Significance Continues to Slide
2019 was indeed a year full of turmoil within the auto industry. Between the urgent demand for electric vehicles to a stiff trade stand-off between the United States and China there was clearly a growing strain in the industry and no other nation was pushed more this past year than Germany. German car-makers produced just 4.7 million vehicles in 2019 having their exports skid 13%, both numbers are shockingly low for a nation that has been at the forefront of the industry for generations! As we have discussed in previous newsletters there is a growing emphasis on electric vehicles in the global market and more specifically in the European Union. Having some of the strictest CO2 regulations in the world, German car brands have no choice but to comply, and make a big commitment to the electric side of the market, or else they face harsh fines if they do not meet the emission limits. On top of their already sagging sales; the electrification of their vehicles will be a multi-billion dollar project which will require the brands to eliminate thousands of jobs so they can afford this venture. The leadership in these major brands will be tested over the course of the next few years as they try and meet these tight deadlines while simultaneously cutting down their workforce significantly creating tension between workers and executives while also requiring the remaining workers to work more efficiently.
Trivia Answer
Washington D.C- Our nations capital has the worst traffic out of any other city, where commuters wait in 82 hours of traffic a year!
