https://transportevolved.com/2015/05/19/time-lapse-shows-bosch-fitting-its-own-self-driving-technology-to-tesla-model-s-test-cars/ Video: Time Lapse Shows Bosch Fitting its Own Self-Driving Technology to Tesla Model S Test Cars By Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield May 19, 2015
[images https://transportevolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Tesla-Model-S-P85D-5-700x467.jpg The Tesla Model S is already fitted out for autonomous drive, but Bosch has just fitted its own tech https://transportevolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Bosch-Self-Driving-Tesla-700x505.jpg Bosch’s self-driving Tesla is ready to hit the streets in Germany ] With its always-on Internet connectivity, remote diagnostics capability and the very latest models sporting an array of sophisticated sensors and drive by wire tech, every Tesla Model S that rolls off the production line today has the capability to one day become a self-driving car via an over-the-air software update. Indeed, as Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk promised in the recent Q1 2015 Tesla earnings call, basic ‘autopilot’ functionality, like automated overtaking, lane following, and valet parking will be enabled on all suitably equipped Model S cars later this year when Tesla pushes version 7.0 of the Tesla Model S operating system to all cars. One self-driving Model S will live at Bosch’s German test centre in Abstatt. The other will live in Silicon Valley at Bosch’s dedicated autonomous vehicle test centre in Palo Alto. But it isn’t just Tesla that’s using the luxury plug-in car to develop autonomous driving technology. As we explained last month, German electronics company and tier-one automotive supplier Bosch has been eyeing up the Model S for some time as the perfect test bed for it to develop its own self-driving solutions for mainstream automakers. It even produced a lavish video explaining how its self-driving software could theoretically work when fitted to a Model S. [image] It was only CGI — now Bosch is making this vision a reality. Today at its week-long annual International Automotive Press briefing in Boxberg, near Stuttgart in Germany, the company announced that it has purchased two identical Tesla Model S electric cars to bring that vision to reality. One will live at Bosch’s German test centre in Abstatt. The other will live in Silicon Valley at Bosch’s dedicated autonomous vehicle test centre in Palo Alto. Starting with two standard Tesla Model S electric cars, Bosch engineers undertook a complete retrofit program to each vehicle, fitting some 50 new components and more than 1,300 metres of new cabling to turn each Tesla Model S into a Bosch prototype vehicle. To illustrate just how much work was entitled, Bosch filmed a timelapse video of the process, concentrating 1,400 hours of work into the 90-second YouTube video above. The eagle-eyed viewer will note that the retrofitting process — to what looks like a regular Californian-plated light-grey Tesla Model S 85 — is pretty intensive, and involves the removal of many original-fit Tesla components with Bosch-designed hardware. In fact, as the time-lapse shows, the Bosch engineers strip down many of the standard Tesla parts during the retrofit process, including the massive 17-inch touch-screen display, braking system and bumpers. [image] Bosch’s goal: to develop autonomous drive technology it can sell to automakers. We’re not sure if the car was originally fitted with Tesla’s autonomous hardware, but given the number of hours involved and the shots we can see of the car, we’re guessing it was made slightly before Tesla rolled out autonomous hardware as standard across its range. With fifty new components and 400 cable ties holding all the cabling in place, Bosch hasn’t detailed the full component list, but has highlighted some of the most important components, including the Bosch SVC — a stereo video camera to help the car perceive depth which Bosch says is the smallest on the market — and its iBooster electromechanical brake booster system and ESP braking system. While many will question why Bosch has taken a car that has already been designed with hardware and software for future autonomous drive functionality by its original manufacturer and retrofitted its own equipment, there’s one thing the Tesla Model S has that many other cars don’t: space. Look at many autonomous drive car prototypes, and you’ll note the load bay area is packed to overflowing with high-tech computer equipment. Thanks to its clever design however, the Tesla model S has massive load carrying capabilities in the form of its front trunk (frunk) and its deep lower-level load bay in the rear. This makes it possible to fit them both with computer hardware without compromising too much of the usual load carrying space found in an average sedan. Moving forward, Bosch says that development on both cars will continue simultaneously in both California and Germany, helping it refine its autonomous driving hardware and software for commercialisation in the near future. [© transportevolved.com] [dated] https://transportevolved.com/2015/04/20/bosch-video-uses-tesla-model-s-electric-car-to-showcase-autonomous-drive-vision/ Bosch Video Uses Tesla Model S Electric Car to Showcase Autonomous Drive Vision By Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield April 20, 2015 [images https://transportevolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bosch-Self-Driving-Vision-Tesla-Model-S-1-580x326.jpeg Bosch uses a Tesla Model S to demonstrate its vision of the future, with the help of CGI https://transportevolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bosch-Self-Driving-Vision-Tesla-Model-S-4-580x326.jpeg Bosch’s mockup of a future automated car makes use of the 17-inch Tesla touchscreen display https://transportevolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bosch-Self-Driving-Vision-Tesla-Model-S-7-e1429521537277-580x264.jpeg The driver signs in to their car as they would their computer https://transportevolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bosch-Self-Driving-Vision-Tesla-Model-S-6-580x326.jpeg Bosch’s system allows drivers to prioritize time driving versus time in autonomous mode. https://transportevolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bosch-Self-Driving-Vision-Tesla-Model-S-5-580x326.jpeg The Tesla Model S has the hardware. Will it adopt some of the features demonstrated by Bosch? ] Like rival tier one automotive parts supplier Delphi, German parts and electronics company Bosch is working hard to develop and test autonomous driving technology. So far, its specialist division in Palo Alto, California have already developed and produce the kind of things we’ve come to expect from high-end luxury cars, including adaptive cruise control, road sign assist, and automated parking assistants. Later this year, its traffic jam assistant technology will enter into series production, allowing cars to take over braking, steering and accelerating in same-lane stop and go traffic. One day, Bosch says, our cars will do most of the driving — and to help us understand that, it has produced a video envisaging what that might be like for us as passengers, featuring a Tesla Model S electric car as its automated car of the near future. A perfect platform With a fully software-based display system, large 17-inch touchscreen display, over-the air updates, and enough on-board computing power and graphics processors to make even a gaming PC weep in a head-to-head frag fest, the Tesla Model S is the perfect car to chose to demonstrate future advanced self-driving technology. Since Tesla’s own announcement back in October last year that every new Tesla Model S would be built with autonomous driving hardware built in to the car for activation at a later date via an over-the-air update, that suitability has only got better. So it’s no surprise that Bosch has used the Model S as the basis for this particular demonstration, even though we suspect a large portion of the video is in fact a virtual mockup of how a future system could work rather than a functioning prototype. Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the $80,000+ luxury sedan used to give us a vision of what self-driving cars could be like. At the 2014 Geneva Motor Show, Swiss automotive think tank Rinspeed used the Tesla Model S as the basis for its futuristic, fully-autonomous XchangE concept car. Unlike Rinspeed’s lavish, over-the-top Jetsonesque XchangE however, the system Bosch shows us in this recent video is far more tangible to everyday life. What’s more, it presents a future user interface which we could imagine being used in a future Tesla software update. Bosch’s vision In Bosch’s vision of the future, on-board systems not only learn our regular patterns and routes — something Tesla is already starting to implement in its cars with calendar-aware climate control and GPS programming — but also use real-time data to change our routes for maximum temporal and fuel efficiency. As Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has been careful to point out in the past, autonomous driving will most likely take the form of autopilot-like features, taking over the majority of driving tasks but requiring a driver to be behind the wheel and able to take over if required. As such, the driver may spend the majority of their time letting the car do the hard work, only taking over when called to do so by the car’s software. To take advantage of this, Bosch presents an idea we haven’t encountered before, too: prioritising travel time versus driving time. Instead of automatically picking the shortest or quickest route, the system of the near future would allow drivers to prioritise routes which have more potential for autonomous driving. That way, a driver can pick a route which takes 31 minutes split between 20 minutes of automated driving and 11 minutes of manual driving over a total trip of 29 minutes, split between 13 minutes of automated driving and 16 minutes of manual driving. While they might be in the car longer, the former allows the driver to spend less time driving and more time doing other things — like catching up on email — compared to the latter. With a large 17-inch touchscreen display, the Tesla Model S is well-suited to this demonstration, with plenty of space for the driver to catch up on email or arrange their day as if they had a laptop in front of them. All the time, the car’s on-board computer displays a countdown timer which automatically adjusts according to traffic and conditions, letting the driver know how long they have before they’ll need to start driving manually again. Another neat feature we like from Bosch’s video is the ability to rate the car’s autonomous behavior, training it to your personal tastes. While autonomous cars do tend to err on the side of caution, most companies building autonomous cars have discovered that they’ve had to make their cars behave more aggressively in the real world than first thought in order to better fit in on the roads. In Bosch’s vision however, sliders appear on the car’s touch-screen display after an overtaking or lane-change maneuver has been executed, allowing drivers to ‘rate’ the car on its performance. Like your car to take a little longer to overtake? Want it to give more space to the car in front? That can all be learned, putting the driver at ease and presumably avoiding the back-seat driver syndrome that we all invariably have to some degree or another when sitting in a car that we’re not driving. Just a demonstration? In its video, Bosch underlines the fact that the Tesla Model S used in the video is a concept vehicle and not in series production. It also digitally wipes the large Tesla logo from the steering wheel and replaces Tesla’s existing displays with its own. It’s likely then that Tesla isn’t working alongside Bosch on this particular project. But with Tesla promising a complete revamp to its on-board operating system for later this year — primarily to introduce some basic autonomous driving features and facilitate interaction between the driver and the car in order to use them in a logical way — we’re curious to see just how much of Bosch’s vision is replicated by Tesla’s own in-house systems. 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