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  • Toyota Joins Tesla In Developing Self-Driving Tech With Low-Cost Cameras

    Toyota Joins Tesla In Developing Self-Driving Tech With Low-Cost Cameras

    Toyota Motor unit Woven Planet has joined Tesla Inc in trying to advance self-driving technology without expensive sensors such as lidars.

    Woven Planet told Reuters it is able to use low-cost cameras to collect data and effectively train its self-driving system, a “breakthrough” that it hopes will help drive down costs and scale up the technology.

    Gathering diverse driving data using a massive fleet of cars is critical to developing a robust self-driving car system, but it is costly and not scalable to test autonomous vehicles with expensive sensors, it said.

    Tesla has been betting on cameras to collect data from over 1 million vehicles on the road to develop its automated driving technology, while Alphabet’s Waymo and other self-driving car firms added expensive sensors like lidars to a small number of vehicles.

    “We need a lot of data. And it’s not sufficient to just have a small amount of data that can be collected from a small fleet of very expensive autonomous vehicles,” Michael Benisch, vice president of Engineering at Woven Planet, said in an interview with Reuters.

    “Rather, we’re trying to demonstrate that we can unlock the advantage that Toyota and a large automaker would have, which is access to a huge corpus of data, but with a much lower fidelity,” said Benisch, a former engineering director at Lyft’s self-driving division, which Toyota acquired last year.

    Woven Planet uses cameras that are 90% cheaper than sensors that it used before and can be easily installed in fleets of passenger cars.

    Woven Planet says it uses cameras that are 90% cheaper than sensors it used previously.

    It said using a majority of data coming from low-cost cameras increased its system’s performance to a level similar to when the system was trained exclusively on high-cost sensor data.

    He said, however, Toyota would still use multiple sensors such as lidars and radars for robotaxis and other autonomous vehicles to be deployed on the road, as this currently seemed to be the best, safest approach to developing robotaxis.

    “But in many, many years, it’s entirely possible that camera type technology can catch up and overtake some of the more advanced sensors,” he said.

    “The question may be more about when and how long it will take to reach a level of safety and reliability. I don’t believe we know that yet.”

    Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk said it can achieve full autonomy with cameras this year after missing his previous targets several times.

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  • More Jobs In Auto Lost, Toyota And Hyundai Cut Production

    More Jobs In Auto Lost, Toyota And Hyundai Cut Production

    With India’s auto sales declining for the ninth straight month in July, more automotive manufacturers are laying off workers and temporarily halting production to keep costs in check, according to sources and documents seen by Reuters.

    Japanese carmaker Toyota Motor and South Korea’s Hyundai Motor are the latest in a string of companies to briefly halt some parts of production at plants to combat slumping sales, according to company memos to employees, reviewed by Reuters.Passenger vehicle sales in July fell at the fastest pace in nearly two decades.

    The sales declines have triggered major job cuts in India’s auto sector, with many companies forced to shut down factories for days and axe shifts.

    Sources have told Reuters that even more companies have now begun to lay off temporary workers as the slowdown worsens.

    Denso Corp’s India unit, which makes powertrain and air-conditioning systems for cars, has cut some temporary workers at its Manesar plant in north India, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

    A spokeswoman for Denso said the information was incorrect and declined to elaborate further.

    In a separate email, another company official disputed that the firm employed temporary workers at its Manesar plant.

    Bellsonica, which is part-owned by India’s biggest carmaker Maruti Suzuki and makes auto framework parts, has also let more than 350 workers go in Manesar, two sources said.In an email, Bellsonica said the workers that had been let go were temporary workers, and most had been let go earlier in the year.Reuters earlier this month reported automakers, component manufacturers and dealers had already cut 350,000 jobs

    In a meeting with India’s finance ministry on Aug 7, industry executives asked for tax cuts, and easier access to finance for dealers and buyers, in an effort to revive sales.Toyota, in a notice dated Aug 13, told its workers the company would halt production at its plants in Bengaluru in southern India on Aug 16 and 17 “due to low market demand of vehicles” and high stock of about 7,000 vehicles. N Raja, deputy managing director, at Toyota’s India unit, told Reuters that while the company had a flexible production system it had to resort to five no-production days in August to prevent the build up of stock.”The industry is deeply concerned with the reality of poor customer sentiment faced by the sector,” said Raja, adding he hoped the government would step in to support the industry

    Hyundai, in a memo on Aug 9, also said it would halt production for several days in August across various departments including the body shop and paint shop as well as its engine and transmission plants. A Hyundai Motor India spokesman said the company expected sales to pick up in the festive season starting next month and added that the company had not laid off any workers.

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  • Apple China bracing for fall

    Apple China bracing for fall

    Even as it announces record revenues and net profit, Apple says it has sold fewer iPhones in the first quarter and is bracing for a fall in sales in its critical Chinese market.

    “It’s becoming more apparent that there are some signs of economic softness,” says CFO Luca Maestri. “We are starting to see something that we have not seen before.”

    He admits the tech giant is working in a “very difficult macroeconomic environment” and projects a further slide in iPhone sales for the second quarter, reports the International Business Times. Apple’s projected revenues indicate the company’s sales are about to fall for the first time in 13 years.

    Apple’s sales stumble was masked by the record corporate quarterly profit. Conlumino analyst Neil Saunders takes a close look at the latest Apple report in our international section.

    Apple sold 74.8 million iPhones in the first quarter, ending December 26, which is the first full quarter of sales of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. The 0.4 per cent growth in shipments was the lowest since the product’s launch in 2007.

    Maestri says that although Apple China revenue rose by 14 per cent in the quarter, the company is starting to see a shift in the economy, particularly in Hong Kong.

    Apple had record figures in the first quarter for both net profit ($18.36 billion, up from $18.02 billion) and revenue (up 1.7 per cent to $75.87 billion). Greater China accounted for 24.2 per cent of the total revenue, more than all of Europe combined.

    An indication of Apple’s popularity in China can perhaps be gauged by the dwindling number of fake Apple stores in the southern city of Shenzhen, some of which have been taken over by unauthorised outlets for local phone brands.

    In a street of gadget stores, copycat Apple outlets were not uncommon, complete with the latest iPhone models and accessories and uniformed staff. Only four months there were more than 30, but about a third of these have gone, reports Reuters. Instead of iPhones, some of these shops are now selling Huawei, Meizu, Oppo and Xiaomi phones.

    In fact, the iPhone has become a “street cellphone” – a Chinese term that means a widely available and popular product that lacks novelty value.

    “Using an iPhone is hardly something you can show off to people now,” a Shenzhen retailer told Reuters.

    In the US, iPhones are still popular, and 60 per cent of people who had an iPhone before the launch of the iPhone 6 have yet to upgrade, says the company.

    Meanwhile, the Indian market stands out as a rare bright spot for Apple with a growing demand for iPhones, reports The Indian Express.

    Sales of the company’s flagship smartphone climbed 76 per cent in India from the year-ago quarter, according to Luca Maestri.

    Apple CEO Tim Cook has suggested more growth lies ahead with median age in India being 27 years.

    “I see the demographics there also being incredibly great for a consumer brand,” he says. “We have been putting increasingly more energy in India.”

    India cannot immediately offset Apple’s woes in China, says analyst Neil Shah of Counterpoint Technology Market Research. Apple averaged about 450,000 smartphone shipments a quarter in India last year, compared with more than 15 million a quarter in China.

    Also, nearly 70 per cent of smartphones sell for less than $150, leaving  a slim market for Apple’s high-end phones. Its smartphone market share stands at less than 2 per cent, says Shah.

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