The eye-catching 7.5-metric ton Volta Zero provides an attractive proposition for clean last-mile deliveries, with unique features such as a 220° field of vision around the vehicle thanks to a glasshouse-style cab. Rearview cameras have replaced traditional mirrors and are complemented by a 360° birds-eye camera and blind-sport warning sensors.

The driver of a Volta Zero sits far lower than in a conventional truck, with their eye-line at around 1.8m, mirroring the height of pedestrians. A central driving position enables the driver to enter and exit the vehicle on either side.

The first Volta Zero ran off the production line in Austria in September 2022 and at the start of 2023, Volta Trucks announced that it would produce 300 of its Volta Zero trucks this year, bringing in around €85m (US$89.5m) associated revenue.

In April, The Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport in Germany also approved the subsidization of 151 all-electric Volta Zero trucks, providing support to Volta Trucks’ customers totaling €24.6m (US$26m). Companies trialing the Volta Zero included the likes of DPD (Geopost), DB Schenker and M&S.

A statement by the Volta Trucks board said, “Volta Trucks accomplished a great deal from a standing start in 2019, revolutionizing commercial vehicle operations for a sustainable future.

“We created the world’s first purpose-built 16-metric ton all-electric truck, including a unique cab and chassis design, that would have contributed to decarbonizing the environment and enhanced the health and safety and air quality of urban centers.

“Piloting in five countries in Europe, we received fantastic feedback, which led to a strong pipeline of highly reputed customers who wanted to introduce our Volta Zero Trucks into their fleets.

“However, like all scale-ups in the EV manufacturing sector, Volta Trucks has faced challenges along the way. The recent news that our battery supplier (Proterra) has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, has had a significant impact on our manufacturing plans, reducing the volume of vehicles that we had forecast to produce. The uncertainty with our battery supplier also negatively affected our ability to raise sufficient capital in an already challenging capital-raising environment for electric vehicle players.

“With deep and sincere regret, the board has therefore taken the difficult decision to take steps to file for bankruptcy proceedings in Sweden. The main trading entity of the Group, Volta Trucks Limited, will shortly file for administration in England, with insolvency practitioners from Alvarez & Marsal anticipated to take office. Other Group entities will also shortly file for insolvency proceedings in the relevant jurisdictions.

“The board has not taken this course easily or lightly and is fully aware of the significant impact this will have on the organization’s dedicated workforce, as well as customers and partners. We would like to sincerely thank the Volta Trucks team and are incredibly proud of their pioneering work to deliver such an innovative zero-emission commercial vehicle.”

Unsurprisingly, the results showed that young, high-earning and well-educated ‘status-oriented trendsetters’ and ‘tech-savvy passengers’ most look forward to autonomous driving. In contrast, skepticism is dominant among ‘suspicious drivers’, who tend to be older with a lower level of income and education.

The ‘safety-oriented reluctant’ would use autonomous driving only when others have gained experience with the technology. The largest user group are the ‘open-minded co-pilots’, who are fundamentally open to autonomous driving as long as they can take control at any time.

Dr. Luciano Floridi, professor of philosophy and ethics of information and director of the Digital Ethics Lab, University of Oxford, and contributor to the &Audi initiative, said, “This study is more than just a welcome addition to our knowledge about the phenomenon of autonomous driving. It is a necessary step for any policy- and law-making decision, as well as any R&D and business strategy that intends to be proactive and informed in delivering a better world.”

Since 2015, Audi has been examining the social acceptance of autonomous driving. In the study, the initiative investigates how rational arguments, emotions, values and lifestyles shape attitudes to autonomous driving. The result is a triad consisting of an emotional landscape, a human readiness index, and a user typology.

The emotional landscape on autonomous driving produces a mixed picture. On the one hand, internationally there is strong interest in (82%) and curiosity about (62%) autonomous driving. In the new technology, respondents see potential for the individual and society – from easier access to mobility (76%) and greater convenience (72%) to more safety (59%). More than half of respondents would also like to test autonomous driving.

On the other hand, clear concerns also exist, above all the fear of loss of control (70%) and unavoidable residual risks (66%). Nearly half (41%) of respondents are suspicious of the technology, and about one-third (38%) are anxious. The greatest willingness to hand over control relates to autonomous parking and traffic jams on highways. The level of knowledge about autonomous driving appears to be low: only 8% state that they can explain the subject.

The human readiness index (HRI) provides insights into the way that attitudes to autonomous driving relate to socio-demographics. The results show that the younger the respondents are and the higher their level of education and income, the more positive their attitude to autonomous driving. Differences are also apparent between the countries that were investigated. The Chinese (HRI +5.1) are euphoric, and South Koreans (HRI +1.2) are also above-average in their positive view of the technology. In Europe, the Spanish and Italians lead the field (both HRI +0.7). Germans and French are relatively reserved (both HRI -0.7), as are the Americans, Japanese and British (all HRI -0.9). The HRI combines knowledge of, interest in, emotions about, and readiness to use self-driving cars to produce a numerical indicator between -10 and +10.

By examining attitudes to autonomous driving in the context of people’s lives, the user typology shows that significant differences exist. This analysis results in five user types. The ‘suspicious driver’ likes to stick with what already exists and would use autonomous driving only if it had become fully established. ‘Safety-oriented reluctants’ also have a largely reserved attitude to autonomous driving. They believe that autonomous cars should first be tested for years before being allowed on the road.

The ‘open-minded co-pilot’ sees the benefits of the technology and desires measures from the fields of business, science and politics to put the cars on the road safely. ‘Status-oriented trendsetters’ are enthusiastic about self-driving cars because they can demonstrate their progressive lifestyle in this way. The ‘tech-savvy passenger’ trusts the technology and wants it to be introduced across the board.

“Automated and autonomous driving has the potential to improve our mobility substantially,” said Thomas Müller, head of automated driving at Audi. “On the way there, alongside technical development, it is of decisive importance to convince people. The study provides us with differentiated insights about where people stand in relation to autonomous driving and how we can establish suitable expectations about the new technology in society.”

The joint venture will begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and will aim to develop a production-ready autonomous driving platform available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators, and automotive manufacturers in 2022.

As part of the agreement, Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv will each have a 50% ownership stake in the joint venture, valued at a total of US$4bn. Aptiv will contribute its autonomous driving technology, intellectual property, and approximately 700 employees focused on the development of scalable autonomous driving solutions. Hyundai Motor Group affiliates — Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and Hyundai Mobis — will collectively contribute US$1.6bn in cash at closing and US$0.4bn in vehicle engineering services, R&D resources and access to intellectual property.

“This partnership further strengthens Aptiv’s industry-leading capabilities in the development of advanced driver assistance systems, vehicle connectivity solutions, and smart vehicle architecture,” said Kevin Clark, president and CEO, Aptiv. “Hyundai Motor Group’s cutting-edge engineering and R&D capabilities make them our partner of choice to advance the development of a production-ready autonomous platform.”

Chung Eui-sun, executive vice chairman, Hyundai Motor Group, said, “The new joint venture marks the start of a journey with Aptiv toward our common goal of commercializing autonomous driving. The combined capabilities of Aptiv, a leading global technology company, and our group, a global OEM, will create invaluable synergy to lead the autonomous driving landscape.”

The new joint venture will be led by Karl Iagnemma, president, Aptiv Autonomous Mobility and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with technology centers across the USA and Asia, including Korea. Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv will each appoint an equal number of directors to govern the joint venture.

The joint venture’s Korea operations will serve as a key technology center as well as a base for vehicle modification and a testbed for autonomous driving mobility service platforms. Hyundai Motor Group’s strong presence in the local automotive market and the country’s world-class 5G infrastructure are anticipated to spur the partnership’s development efforts.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close early in the second quarter of 2020.

Willem Strijbosch, TomTom’s head of autonomous driving, said, “Having our own autonomous vehicle is a critical advantage when it comes to developing the technology required for safe and comfortable autonomous driving. We can continuously test our mapping technology on the roads, get insights and high-quality data on how it performs in a multitude of circumstances, and, right away, feed this into our AI-driven map-making process.”

The AV leverages several stereo cameras, six radars and eight laser scanners to provide a 360° view of the vehicle’s surrounds. The data from these sensors is processed and referenced against the TomTom HD Map so that the vehicle can locate itself precisely.

The TomTom HD Map is a highly accurate representation of the road, including lane models, lane geometry and traffic signs, with accuracy down to a few centimeters. It enables automated vehicles to precisely locate themselves on the road; to build a detailed model of the surrounding environment; and to plan a path to the destination.

Recently TomTom announced that it had closed deals with multiple global car makers to provide its HD Map, which covers Europe, the USA and Asia.

“We’re already the natural choice for auto makers who want to deploy automated driving systems on a global scale,” said Strijbosch. “Now that we can move even faster in our research and product development, we’re further elevating the quality of our offering.”

One of the fundamental challenges in the development of AVs is the interpretation of the huge quantities of data generated by normal driving conditions, such as identifying pedestrians and vehicles with the sensors on the car, including cameras, lidar and radars.

As part of its studies into particle physics, CERN has to collect large quantities of data originating from particle collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

CERN has approached this challenge by using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), an integrated circuit that can be configured after manufacturing to execute complex decision-taking algorithms in micro-seconds. The synergy between Zenuity and CERN aims to use FPGAs for fast machine learning applications, to be used in the AV industry and in particle physics experiments.

Dr Dennis Nobelius, Zenuity’s chief executive, said, “I think it says something important about the collaborative nature of science that an organization like CERN that conducts high-energy particle collisions can work with a company that is dedicated to completely eliminating collisions… in traffic.”

The research to be conducted under the collaboration concerns so-called ‘deep learning’, which is a class of machine learning algorithms. In recent years, such algorithms, commonly referred to as AI, have been applied to a multitude of fields with great success, even exceeding human performance on certain tasks.

Zenuity hopes that their collaboration with CERN will push the frontiers of this technology by reducing the runtime and memory footprint of the relevant deep learning algorithms without reducing accuracy, while simultaneously minimizing energy consumption and cost.

“I personally view this collaboration as a manifestation of the fact that this rapidly developing technology not only spans across different industries, but also across the boundary between scientific research and industry, and this kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration is needed to reach ambitious goals,” added Nobelius.

The collaboration forms part of CERN’s knowledge-transfer activities to engage with experts in technology and industry, in order to maximize the positive contribution of CERN technologies on society.

Available for free, the Waymo Open Dataset comprises high-resolution multimodal sensor data covering more than 10 million miles in 25 cities. The data set covers a wide variety of environments, from dense urban centers to suburban landscapes, as well as data collected during day and night, at dawn and dusk, in sunshine and rain.

Believed to be one of the largest self-driving data sets ever released for research, it contains data from 1,000 driving segments, with each segment capturing 20 seconds of continuous driving, corresponding to 200,000 frames at 10Hz per sensor. Such continuous footage gives researchers the opportunity to develop models to track and predict the behavior of other road users.

Each segment contains sensor data from five high-resolution Waymo lidars and five front-and-side-facing cameras. The data set includes lidar frames and images with vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists and signage carefully labeled, capturing a total of 12 million 3D labels and 1.2 million 2D labels. Waymo has also been working on 3D perception models that fuse data from multiple cameras and lidars.

A statement on the company’s blog page read, “When it comes to research in machine learning, having access to data can turn an idea into a real innovation. This data has the potential to help researchers make advances in 2D and 3D perception, and progress on areas such as domain adaptation, scene understanding and behavior prediction. We hope that the research community will generate more exciting directions with our data that will not only help to make self-driving vehicles more capable, but also impact other related fields and applications, such as computer vision and robotics. This release is just the first step and we welcome community feedback on how to make our data set even more impactful in future updates.”

Element invests in scratch hardness testing capability at Wednesbury lab

Element Materials Technology has invested in new equipment to facilitate scratch hardness testing for the automotive industry. The Erichsen 430 P-I scratch hardness device, which is located at Element’s Wednesbury, UK laboratory, provides more accurate scratch hardness testing of automotive paint coatings and is able to replicate tests such as ISO 2409 with better precision due to the automated nature of the technology. This also ensures capacity to create scratch lines within 0.5mm of one another.

The enhanced precision of the Erichsen 430 P-I gives Element the capability to conduct scratch hardness testing to new, leading industry standards as implemented by Jaguar Land Rover, General Motors and BMW. This is in addition to capabilities for traditional requirements utilizing handheld devices.

Element’s investment in new scratch hardness testing equipment is in response to changing market conditions, with automotive companies increasingly demanding more accuracy and numerical data in relation to the testing of paint coatings.

Rob Veitch, EVP of fire and building products at Element, said, “As the automotive industry continues to evolve, the requirements for all aspects of vehicle testing are becoming more rigorous and data-oriented.

“It is likely that more companies will follow JLR, GM and BMW in mandating higher testing standards and investing in technology at the forefront of automotive paint testing, such as the Erichsen 430 P-I, ensures that Element is established as a leading testing center operating to the highest technical standards. It also serves to highlight that we have the capability and expertise to invest in the latest technology to provide the most comprehensive service to our clients.”