TomTom debuts end-to-end autonomous driving system at CES 2019

By Georgina Torbet Published December 14, 2020

NHTSA DOT UMTRI V2V test in Ann Arbor, Michigan — Image used with permission by copyright holder

CES isn’t officially starting until Tuesday, January 8, but there’s already news about some of the innovations that we can expect to see demoed there. This week, Dutch GPS company TomTom announced they would be moving into the realm of autonomous vehicles in a partnership with Japanese automotive components manufacturer Denso.

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The collaboration will produce an autonomous driving system which is capable of both perceiving objects in the environment and planning a path from one location to another. The aim is to achieve Level 2 automation which will work on highways and other major urban roads using TomTom’s end to end mapping system. TomTom will contribute a high definition map which will work together with in-car sensors from Denso like cameras or radars for localization and perception functions, which should make the system reliable and safe.

In practice, the collaboration will be achieved by the Denso sensors picking up information and then processing it, then sending the processed data on to TomTom’s mapping systems so that the TomTom map can be updated on the fly. The maps updates will be generated through crowdsourcing, in a system called Roadagrams which will check whether the reality of the road situations corresponds to the map provided by the TomTom. And these updated maps will be delivered to the vehicles through TomTom’s map delivery system, AutoStream.

Harold Goddijn, CEO of TomTom, described how he sees the value of autonomous vehicle technology for a GPS and mapping company like TomTom: “DENSO is a long-time leader in automotive ADAS technology. We’re proud to be working with them to serve their Japanese and global customers. This collaboration proves the value of the TomTom HD Map and TomTom AutoStream as critical components for autonomous vehicles.”

In addition to the autonomous driving system, TomTom will also be collaborating with powertrain company Delphi Technologies to create predictive powertrains. The vehicles will have powertrain control systems which interface with TomTom’s maps to predict what lies ahead, taking information about speed limits and road gradients to control the speed of a vehicle and reduce its energy consumption. The energy savings aim to optimize journeys by reducing fuel consumption and lower rates of car emissions.

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Georgina Torbet

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Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

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Tesla, Warner Bros. dodge some claims in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ lawsuit, copyright battle continues

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Tesla and Warner Bros. scored a partial legal victory as a federal judge dismissed several claims in a lawsuit filed by Alcon Entertainment, a production company behind the 2017 sci-fi movie Blade Runner 2049, Reuters reports.
The lawsuit accused the two companies of using imagery from the film to promote Tesla’s autonomous Cybercab vehicle at an event hosted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Studios in Hollywood in October of last year.
U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was inclined to dismiss Alcon’s allegations that Tesla and Warner Bros. violated trademark law, according to Reuters. Specifically, the judge said Musk only referenced the original Blade Runner movie at the event, and noted that Tesla and Alcon are not competitors.
"Tesla and Musk are looking to sell cars," Reuters quoted Wu as saying. "Plaintiff is plainly not in that line of business."
Wu also dismissed most of Alcon's claims against Warner Bros., the distributor of the Blade Runner franchise.
However, the judge allowed Alcon to continue its copyright infringement claims against Tesla for its alleged use of AI-generated images mimicking scenes from Blade Runner 2049 without permission.
Alcan says that just hours before the Cybercab event, it had turned down a request from Tesla and WBD to use “an icononic still image” from the movie.
In the lawsuit, Alcon explained its decision by saying that “any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”
Alcon further said it did not want Blade Runner 2049 “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”
But according to Alcon, Tesla went ahead with feeding images from Blade Runner 2049 into an AI image generator to yield a still image that appeared on screen for 10 seconds during the Cybercab event. With the image featured in the background, Musk directly referenced Blade Runner.
Alcon also said that Musk’s reference to Blade Runner 2049 was not a coincidence as the movie features a “strikingly designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car.”

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2021 Audi Q5

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Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
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It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
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Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
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