🚵🏻 🏇 🍒 The most interesting automotive startups 2019-2020 🦏 ⛷️ 🎅🏽

Despite the fact that the timing of the introduction of fully autonomous vehicles is constantly changing, this does not slow down the growth of the automotive startup ecosystem. While some companies are still working to achieve the goal of Level 5 autonomy, others are solving the problems associated with electric cars, cybersecurity, processor equipment and other painful moments in the automotive industry.

We invite you to get acquainted with the top ten latest automotive startups in 2020 (and the 12th startups in 2019), which already have an impact on the automotive industry.

2020

Acerta

Acerta's Canadian startup mission is to provide automotive equipment manufacturers and first-tier suppliers with information to improve product quality at every stage of the design and manufacturing life cycle. Acerta
Cortex is a data processing solution specifically designed for the automotive industry.

Cortex transforms any existing data storage structure into a smart data center that allows you to implement a wide range of machine learning solutions in a single framework. According to company representatives, Cortex “allows you to combat data sharing, simplifies the search and reduces management overhead”, and this does not require laborious data engineering.

Chanje

California startup Chanje is a new player in the electric freight market. The company produces cars designed to travel on the "last mile" of delivery, that is, transportation from the distribution center to the final destination.

The Chanje V8100 is an all-electric medium-duty van that travels 150 miles on a single charge and holds 675 cubic feet, with a payload capacity of 6,000 pounds.

GBatteries

The Canadian company GBatteries is working to eliminate the main obstacle to electric vehicles - charging time. Vehicles with a gasoline engine are much less environmentally friendly, but refueling does not take several hours.

GBatteries use a combination of software and hardware to dramatically reduce vehicle charging times to five minutes. For this, hardware is used, as well as AI, generating complex profiles of charging pulses based on monitoring and analysis of the internal state of the battery in real time. GBatteries are developing a device for charging standard lithium-ion batteries, which will run as fast as gas stations.

Guardknox

Israel has become known for the emergence of companies with a new approach to cybersecurity, and GuardKnox is one of these companies. The cybersecurity car company adopted the technology used to ensure the security of Israeli fighter jets and transferred them to automobiles. GuardKnox release an electronic control unit (ECU) called Secure Network Orchestrator (SNO). This unit protects every level of the car - from resistance to keyless opening to protection of the infotainment system.

GuardKnox declares that their block can be sold by first-level OEMs, even in the secondary market.

Humanising autonomy

The problem with pedestrians is that they never behave the way you want, and often act unpredictably. Based in the United Kingdom and Detroit, Humanising Autonomy is working on artificial intelligence that will not only detect and recognize pedestrians, but really predict their behavior.

The company claims to have trained AI to make predictions that take into account culture and context. Someday, unmanned vehicles will not only recognize pedestrians at the crossing, but also predict whether they might suddenly go out, or determine insufficient attention to traffic from the pedestrian.

Humanising Autonomy won the Ten Best Los Angeles Automotive Startups Contest in 2019.

Silicon mobility

Silicon Mobility is a French startup that creates semiconductor devices designed for the automotive industry - in particular, to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions. The Field Programmable Control Unit (FPBU) called OLEA is designed for next-generation electric and hybrid electric vehicles. In combination with its own software stack, Silicon Mobility control panels can control the engine, battery charging, and energy conversion systems. The company claims that its products can help automakers expand their range of electric vehicles, as well as reduce emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere from hybrid vehicles.

Streetcooter

Given the name, you might think that StreetScooter was going to compete with companies like Bird or Lime. In fact, a German startup produces electric vehicles, ranging from vans to small trucks for various commercial and city tasks. Their Work L truck is equipped with a 43 kW lithium-ion battery and 68 kW engine with up to 92 horsepower. The truck body can also be adapted and configured depending on the type of cargo. The company says more than 12,000 cars are currently operated daily in all of Germany.

Trieye

Israeli startup TriEye is a company that solves the low visibility problem for autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Their Raven camera is powered by a short-wave infrared (SWIR) CMOS sensor. This camera can record HD images in all weather conditions and in any light, while the camera has a reasonable cost. TriEye claims that the camera is algorithmically independent and can be integrated into existing ADAS systems and unmanned vehicle architectures.

TuSimple

TuSimple from San Diego had a very important year. In 2019, the US Postal Service and UPS signed an agreement to conduct pilot programs using the company's technologies. TuSimple use a combination of cameras and computer vision to transform long-distance trucks into autonomous level 4 vehicles. If the development dynamics of the company continues in 2020, then its trucks will be able to take their rightful place in various industries.

Wunder mobility

The German company Wunder Mobility specializes in transport software. Wunder Mobility produces application-based platforms that help enterprises and cities build and scale their mobile services. In fact, instead of creating a mobile platform from scratch, the automaker can use the application from Wunder Mobility to develop its own solution. We can say that the company's product is an application designer or a template created for fleets, electronic scooters, bicycles and other vehicles. The company claims that its platform is deployed in more than 100 cities on five continents.

2019

Aye

Many unmanned and networked vehicles rely on lidars for navigation. But lidars alone are not enough. Aeye’s solution, iDAR (short for intelligent detection and ranging), addresses the processing time and processing power inherent in lidars. iDAR combines solid-state and flexible lidars, and it also has a built-in HD camera that works in low light conditions. The logic of the iDAR is provided by AI-based computer vision that speeds up the vehicle’s perception system. According to the company, iDAR can increase the speed of perception up to 10 times and reduce energy consumption by five to ten times. In recent performance tests monitored and verified by VSI Labs,one of the country's leading automotive technology experts, AEye's iDAR system detected and tracked a truck one kilometer away, which is four to five times the distance at which modern lidar-based systems operate.

Affectiva

Affectiva's goal is to add an emotional element to your car. The company has developed an AI system that can recognize a range of human emotions, including anger and drowsiness. AI works using a system of cameras installed in the vehicle interior. The ultimate goal is to allow cars to respond in a variety of ways, based on the emotions of the driver and passengers. The car can automatically adjust the temperature or play soothing music depending on the mood of the driver. And in extreme situations, an unmanned vehicle can go on the road and warn an ambulance if it finds that something happened to the driver - such as a heart attack or loss of consciousness

Byton

One of the audience’s favorites at the 2018 LA Show, Byton, refers not to the automotive business, but to the business of creating “mobile platforms”. The company is developing unmanned vehicles, which are less conventional vehicles, and more mobile offices and workplaces. In addition to the attractive aesthetics that captivated visitors to the LA Auto Show, one of the main features of their M-Byte concept car is the all-glass cockpit, which replaces the buttons and knobs on the dashboard with a full-screen interface.

The glass cockpit allows you to control all the functions of the dashboard and much more with gestures, voices and even breathing. At the LA Auto Show, a second Byton concept car, the K-Byte, a 4th-level unmanned vehicle, was also presented. The Chinese company is currently testing the M-Byte under real-world road conditions and has opened offices in Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Munich, Hong Kong and Beijing with the goal of introducing its vehicles in the US and Europe over the next two to three years.

Carmera

Carmera focuses on the infrastructure necessary to help unmanned vehicles navigate their space as accurately as possible. The company has developed a set of HD-cards for autonomous cars. Carmera uses crowdsourcing data from car sensors, on the basis of which a constantly updated 3D map for unmanned vehicles is created, which can be used for navigation, analysis for infrastructure planning and fleet tracking. Carmera is one of the three finalists of the “Top 10 Automotive Startups” competition at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show. Earlier this year, Carmera announced a partnership with Voyage, through which it will provide mapping services for unmanned taxis in Florida.

Darwinai

You can not talk about unmanned vehicles without discussing artificial intelligence, namely deep learning. All these neural networks for vision control, natural language processing and other functions necessary for the operation of self-propelled machines require a lot of computing power, as well as a large amount of memory. DarwinAI is a deep learning software company that wants to make deep learning less resource intensive by optimizing algorithms and neural networks.

In short, feed the DarwinAI neural network and it will return you to a simpler but equally effective version of it. The proprietary optimization method, the Generative Synthesis platform, goes beyond simple compression and uses methods to reduce weight and reduce its accuracy to create more compact neural networks. This approach also increases the factor that the company calls the “explainability” of the neural network, making it easier for developers to understand how the neural network functions and why it makes these or those decisions. Since the company's methods can be applied in various industries, DarwinAI is interesting for the unmanned vehicle market, where efficiency, accuracy and speed are crucial for the software systems that underlie the car.

Electric Vision Aircrafts (EVA)

Maybe where we go, we do not need roads? The X01 from the French startup Electric Vision Aircraft (EVA) is not a car or a truck, it's a small electric plane - essentially a flying machine. Capable of vertical take-off and landing, the X01 is a two-seater electric aircraft with a speed of 400 kilometers per hour (about 249 miles per hour). It is also equipped with a radar, lidar and 12 cameras to provide a completely unmanned flight (the maximum speed in unmanned mode is 250 kilometers per hour or about 155 miles per hour). According to the specifications of the company, the X01 is compact enough to fit in any parking space (it measures 5 x 2 meters with its wings folded) and works silently like an electric car - you cannot hear it completely during the flight.Security features also include a built-in parachute. The X01 is not yet in production and an official release date has not been announced, but the company is currently accepting pre-orders for the vehicle from any customer willing to pay approximately $ 284,000.

Freer logic

What if your car could read your mind? Freer Logic has created a proximity sensor EEG / ECD, which can be integrated into the headrest of the car. Headrest with a neurobiomonitor is not required to contact the driver, he can track brain waves at a distance of 6-10 inches from the head. The device is able to recognize fatigue, drowsiness, distraction, stress, relaxation, cognitive stress and other emotions through brain waves and can then instruct the car to act accordingly. Warnings may be given when the driver falls asleep or the vehicle may give a warning if the driver shows signs of distraction.

Metamoto

Silicon Valley Metamoto is a company providing simulation as a service. Their simulators test autonomous vehicle software. The company's own platform allows OEMs to create test scenarios for unmanned vehicles and play them in a fully virtual environment. This allows manufacturers to test various sensors and software in their cars in different road conditions without spending time and money on exhaustive testing in the real world. Although simulation is likely to never replace fully real-world road tests, virtual simulation services like those offered by Metamoto will become increasingly important as OEMs strive to quickly develop cars,able to work better in difficult and often unpredictable conditions of real roads.

Metawave

Metawave is a startup focused on wireless technology with a special emphasis on creating intelligent radars for unmanned driving systems. The company's flagship product - Warlord radar - aims to produce radars that work no worse than lidars, and camera systems to detect objects, people and animals in the real world. According to the company, Warlord is able to determine the location and speed of road objects in fussy areas, such as busy city streets, as well as in any weather conditions.

Warlord uses a millimeter-wave emission technology developed by the company in combination with its own computer vision system, which can expand the capabilities of the radar. The Warlord Intelligent System allows vehicles to detect objects that are outside the line of sight (mainly the possibility of objects around bends), predict the traffic situation, as well as identify road hazards or dangerous traffic situations and warn about approaching vehicles in the area.

Rivian

The most talked about company at the 2018 auto show was Rivian, a Michigan-based startup that wants to do the same things Tesla did for luxury sedans for pickups and SUVs. During the Los Angeles auto show, the company introduced the first two products from its “Electric Adventure Vehicles” line - a five-seater R1T pickup and a seven-seater R1S SUV.

According to Rivian, both cars boast a range of 400 miles on a single charge, a top speed of 125 miles per hour and an acceleration of 0-60 mph in about 3.2 seconds - all with a 180 kilowatt-hour battery pack. Both cars will also offer Level 3 autonomous driving.

The most unique thing about these cars is the company's “skateboard platform.” Rivian cars strive for maximum capacity and volume for transporting goods by placing the battery pack, drive units, suspension, brakes and a thermal system on a platform that rests below the wheels — like a skateboard. Rivian is currently taking pre-orders for both the R1S and R1T, with shipments expected in 2020.

Thor trucks

Thor Trucks specializes in managing the fleet of semi-trucks, the winner of the Ten Best Automotive Startups of 2018 contest at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The company has created a commercial electric freight platform for transporting goods at short and medium distances. Rather than focusing on long-haul traffic, Thor opted for applications such as FedEx-style deliveries, where routes are predictable, 150 miles or less, and with plenty of options for starting and stopping. According to the company, its fully electric approach can save suppliers up to 50% in operating costs and allow them to avoid the work associated with the need to comply with emission standards. The flagship of the company is ET-One, an all-electric semi-truck,which travels 300 miles on a single charge and is capable of carrying up to 80,000 pounds of cargo. Thor recently announced that UPS will be their first partner and customer. As part of this partnership, UPS will test Thor trucks in Los Angeles in the coming months.

what3words

Another representative of the top three finalists of the LA Auto Show 2018 Top Ten Automotive Startups Competition, the London-based what3words startup, believes that our current addressing system - often a complex combination of numbers and letters - has become too uncontrollable and ineffective for the upcoming world of unmanned vehicles connected to the network. Today, the need for precise navigation of vehicles is much greater than centuries ago when our addressing systems were first created. Company decision? Turn every place on the planet into a simple three-word address.

what3words divided the world into 57 trillion 3x3-meter squares, each of which is identified by three keywords (according to the company, currently the keywords are translated into 26 languages and their number is constantly growing). Thus, instead of your current, long address, you now live at the address ///goat.flash.things or //fire.start.directly. Maybe your parents' house is now located at ////limit.metal.turnover.

Unmanned vehicles equipped with what3words will, for example, be able to transport and pick up people and objects to the nearest meter, just by hearing three words. The company’s website already allows any interested person to view his address, which consists of three words ... And no, you will not be able to request a change of address if you do not like these three words.

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The most interesting automotive startups 2019-2020