Mobileye

P3 to use Mobileye Drive for its robotaxis

Posted on by Techtime

Mobileye and the Croatia-based Project 3 Mobility (P3), announced a collaboration to explore a new mobility service, utilizing Mobileye’s scalable self-driving technology, Mobileye Drive. The first P3 service is aimed to be launched in Zagreb in 2026, with testing and validation of Mobileye’s AV solution on the streets of the Croatian capital targeted to start in 2024.

Project 3 Mobility is developing a fully autonomous electric vehicle for urban mobility ecosystem and the needed specialised infrastructure and mobility services. The vehicle is built on a completely new platform designed for fully autonomous driving. The project will create a new mobility service in the wider area of Zagreb based on the concept of “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS). Project 3 Mobility is about to establish a production facility in Croatia for the large-scale production of autonomous vehicles that will be deployed worldwide.

Mobileye technology will be integrated into the P3 vehicle, which will use the Mobileye Drive autonomous driving solution. Currently, Project 3 Mobility has a team of more than 240 people with experts from more than 20 different industries and nationalities in two offices – in Croatia and the UK. P3 has already signed agreements with 9 cities across the EU, UK and the Gulf Cooperation Council to provide its urban autonomous service.

Project 3 Mobility plans to invest at least EUR 350 million before going to market. In May 2023 it secured a 179,5 million euros grant from the European Commission, and in the beginning of February 2024 P3 had closed a 100 million euros Series A investment round. Among the current investors: Kia, SiteGround  and Rimac Group.

Jerusalem-based Mobileye has developed an autonomous driving and driver-assistance technologies. Today, more than 170 million vehicles worldwide have been built with Mobileye technology inside. Its 2023 annual revenue tota;;ed $2.08 billion- 11.24% growth year-over-year. The company’s Future business backlog continues to grow, with 2023 design wins projected to generate future revenue of $7.4 billion across 61 million units.

Mobileye’s EyeQ Ultra Targets Consumer AVs

Posted on by Techtime

Mobileye’s new EyeQ Ultra system-on-chip (SoC) for autonomous driving is optimized for low cost vehicles . The company said that at only 176 TOPS, it can handle all the needs and applications of Level 4 (L4) autonomous driving without the power consumption and costs related to integrating multiple SoCs together. “Consumer AV is the end game for the industry,” said Prof. Amnon Shashua, Mobileye president and CEO. “By developing the entire self-driving solution – from hardware and software to mapping and service models – we can reach the performance-and-cost optimization that will make consumer AVs a reality.”

EyeQ Ultra packs the performance of 10 EyeQ5s in a single package. Leveraging 5 nanometer process technology, EyeQ Ultra can handle all the needs and applications of Level 4 (L4) autonomous driving without the power consumption and costs related to integrating multiple SoCs together. Like its EyeQ predecessors, EyeQ Ultra has been engineered in tandem with Mobileye software, enabling extreme power efficiency with zero performance sacrifices.

First silicon is expected at the end of 2023

EyeQ Ultra (photo above) utilizes an array of four classes of proprietary accelerators, each built for a specific task. They are paired with additional CPU cores, ISPs (Image Signal Processors) and GPUs, and is capable of processing input from two sensing subsystems – one camera-only system and the other radar and lidar combined – as well as the vehicle’s central computing system, the high-definition map and driving policy software.

First silicon for the EyeQ Ultra SoC is expected at the end of 2023, with full automotive-grade production in 2025.  The new AV solution is supported by some 200 petabytes dataset that helps the AV and computer vision system handle edge cases and thereby achieve the very high mean time between failure (MTBF) needed in self-driving vehicles.

The compute engine relies on 500,000 peak CPU cores at the AWS cloud to crunch 50 million datasets monthly – the equivalent to 100 petabytes being processed every month related to 500,000 hours of driving. “The sheer size of Mobileye’s dataset makes the company one of AWS’s largest customers by volume stored globally.”

 

 

Udelv Unveils Autonomous Cab-Less Transporter, driven by Mobileye

Posted on by Techtime

Udelv, a Silicon Valley venture-backed company, unveiled the Transporter, an autonomous electric delivery vehicle for multi-stop delivery, driven by Mobileye Drive self-driving system. The multi-stop electric delivery vehicle features a self-contained, hot swappable modular cargo pod called the uPod.  It can carry up to 2,000 pounds of goods, make up to 80 stops per cycle at highway speeds, cover ranges between 160 and 300 miles per run and be operated by Udelv’s mobile apps to schedule, deliver, track and retrieve packages.

Founded in California in 2017 by CEO Daniel Laury and CTO Akshat Patel, Udelv successfully accomplished the first-ever autonomous delivery on public roads in 2018. Udelv has since completed over 20,000 deliveries for multiple merchants in California, Arizona and Texas with two prior vehicle generations.

Udelv aims at having 50,000 units of the Transporter, driven by Mobileye, on public roads by 2028, with the first Transporters being commercially deployed in 2023. The company has already garnered more than 1,000 reservations, including from US-based Donlen and Europe-based Planzer and Ziegler Group.  The company was also awarded a prestigious contract from the US Air Force for a pilot program on Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The Transporter is driven by the Mobileye Drive™ self-driving system with a suite of cameras, LiDARs, radars and the fifth generation of EyeQ, Mobileye’s System-on-Chip for automotive applications. To rapidly deploy at scale, the Transporter will integrate Mobileye’s AV maps based on Road Experience Management (REM), a crowdsourced, continuously updated map of the world that digitizes what autonomous vehicles need to navigate.

“Taking Mobileye public is admitting Intel’s failure”

Posted on by Techtime

Intel’s intention to take Mobileye public in mid 2022, less than 5 years after its acquisition, continues to resonate and raises questions regarding the direction its current CEO, Pat Gelsinger, is leading the company. In light of the major importance Intel attributed to Mobileye in its future plans, it seems that the expected offering is not a single move; rather it is a sharp u-turn from the strategy led in the past years by the two former CEOs.

In a recent conversation with Techtime, Sergey Vastchenok – Senior Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer Israel explained that the expected offering is the price Intel pays for its mistakes in recent years. “In the recent years, Intel lagged behind its major competitors in the manufacturing world, mainly TSMC and Samsung, with regard to capital expenditures (Capex). This process led Intel to lose its technological advantage”.  

“New CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who grew within Intel and is part of its genetics, came with a vision of reviving its past market dominance, and he did so by massively increasing investments in the company’s organic capabilities”.

Sergey Vastchenok, Oppenheimer Israel

The diminution in Intel’s status is reflected very clearly in its share performance in recent years. In the past 5 years, Intel’s share raised by only 47% whiles the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) index, grouping leading chip companies, raised by 354%. Nvidia and AMD, Intel direct competitors, raised by 1300% within the same period.

Vastchenok: “Intel plans to invest 20-25 billion annually in the coming years to restore the lost advantage. Since the company is deficient with cash, the main question is how to finance the planned increase in investments.  Increasing its debt may harm the company’s credit rating, while additional offering in the stock market may weaken its already weak share. The best method of raising funds is to start selling assets”.

Mobileye is a perfect asset to sell

According to Vastchenok, selling Mobileye is a rational step, since its market value is considerably high, and since there was never a real synergy between the two companies’ core activities. Not only there was no real synergy, one may say that it was even a negative one, since Mobileye buy its chips from TSMC and not from Intel. This led to the situation where Intel financed Mobileye’s development strategy, while TSMC benefit the production orders”.   

“Mobileye is a growing business, and is considered a pioneer and a leader in the advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) world. Yet, it is still difficult to forecast its revenues and its market share in the future autonomous vehicle world, since there are many competitors nowadays. Every technology giant is joining the game. At this situation, if the market is willing to pay a good price for your assets – you better sell. If Intel is going to make it public at the mentioned price, it could significantly enlarge its cash reserves. This move will do well for both Intel and Mobileye. Mobileye has better chance to prosper outside Intel’s wings. As we can see, since it was acquired by Intel they have lost plenty of quality human resources, the same way Intel lost human resources for its competitors”.

What is the future of Moovit?

Selling Mobileye raises questions regarding the future of other companies bought by Intel in the recent years. In May 2020 Intel acquired Moovit – the Israeli public transport platform – for $900 million. This surprising acquisition presented as another step in Intel’s vision to provide Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) services in the future, based on Mobileye’s autonomous vehicles and Moovit’s application. In fact, it seems that the real synergy is between Mobileye and Moovit. “Almost all the acquisitions made by Intel at the past years, to include FPGA vendor Altera, were not related to the core activities of Intel. Taking Mobileye public is an admission of the failure of the acquisition strategy of recent years. It looks like the current CEO is being aware of Intel core expertise and what should they focus at”.

Intel Intends to take Mobileye Public

Posted on by Techtime

Above: Autonomous Driving car in front of Mobileye’s HQ in Jerusalem

the Intel announced its intention to take Mobileye public in the United States in mid-2022 via an initial public offering (IPO). Intel will remain the majority owner of Mobileye, and the two companies will continue as strategic partners, collaborating on projects in the automotive sector. The Mobileye executive team will remain, with Prof. Amnon Shashua continuing as the company’s CEO. Recently acquired Moovit as well as Intel teams working on LiDAR, radar development and other Mobileye projects will be aligned as part of Mobileye.

Jerusalem-based Mobileye provides computer vision chips, data analysis, localization and mapping solutions for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and autonomous driving. On August 2017 Intel completed the acquisition of Mobileye for $15.3 billion. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said that the acquisition of Mobileye has been a success. “Mobileye has achieved record revenue year-over-year with 2021 gains expected to be more than 40% higher than 2020. An IPO provides the best opportunity to build on Mobileye’s track record for innovation and unlock value for shareholders.”

In 2021, Mobileye shipped its 100 millionth EyeQ system-on-chip (SoC), scaled autonomous vehicle (AV) test programs across multiple cities around the world covering the U.S., Europe and Asia, unveiled its production robotaxi, and secured 41 new ADAS program wins across more than 30 automakers. Moovit is a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) solutions provider that complements Mobileye’s solutions. The Tel aviv-based company was acquired by Intel on May 2020, for approximately $900 million.

The Mobileye executive team will remain, with Prof. Amnon Shashua continuing as the company’s CEO. Intel currently owns 100% of Mobileye shares and is expected to retain majority ownership following the completion of the IPO. Intel said it has no intention of spinning off or otherwise divesting its majority ownership interest in Mobileye.

Mobileye revenues surged 124% to $ 327 million

Posted on by Techtime

Intel’s Mobileye revenue in the second quarter of 2021 totaled $ 327 million, according to the quarterly report released by Intel last week. It represents an increase of 124% year-over-year, but a decrease of 13% compared to the previous quarter. Among all of Intel segments, the Mobileye division posted the highest annual growth in the second quarter .

During the second quarter, Mobileye closed 10 additional design wins in the automotive industry, for over 16 million total lifetime units. The most significant win was with Toyota, in which Mobileye and the german tier-1 supplier ZF  will develop for the Japanese automaker an advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) based on a new automotive radar developed by ZF and Mobileye’s computer-vision chip, EyeQ4. The system is intended to be integrated into several of Toyota’s models in the coming years.

Last week, Mobileye began test drives of AVs in New York, the first to receive a permit from the authorities to conduct such trials in the city. In the conference call following the quarterly report, Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger said Mobileye is leading the AV industry. “With vehicles in Israel, Germany, Detroit, Tokyo, Shanghai, and coming soon to Paris, Mobileye has the largest global footprint in the AV industry, enabled by our unique REM distributed mapping technology.”

According to Gelsinger by year end there will be over 1 million vehicles providing telemetry for dynamic crowd-source mapping. “It’s a unique and powerful advantage of Mobileye.”

Intel and Mobileye develop LiDAR in a Chip

Posted on by Techtime

Mobileye announced during CES 2021 this week that it has produced the first prototype of an Automotive LiDAR sensor based on Intel’s Silicon Photonics technology. The new sensor is planned to be installed in its Autonomouse Driving systems in 2025, when the market will be ready for a mass deployment of AVs. According to Prof. Amnon Shashua, President and CEO of Mobileye, the new sensor is based on Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) technology and Doppler-style algorithms as opposed to the current Time of Flight sensors.

The FMCW sensor provides 4D velocity relative measurements for a distance of up to 300 meters. Its high resolution detection capability reaches 600 points per degree, created by 2 milliom laser pulses per second (2M PPS). The idea is that current approaches and available sensors are too expensive for consumer AVs. Mobileye needs Radars and LiDARs that are both better and cheaper. To reach L5 autonomy it propose three levels of redundancy in the forward-facing field of view (FoV), and for the rest of the FoV, 2 levels of redundancy.

In this scenario, the EV system consists of 360⁰ camera coverage, 360⁰ Radar cocoon and one forward-facing LiDAR sensor. In fact, Intel owns a unique Fab capable of putting active and passive optical elements on a chip together, including lasers and optical amplifiers, loaded onto a photonic integrated circuit, PIC.

The goals for the future radar chip are also very agressive: It will be a software-defined imaging radar eqipped with 2,304 virtual channels based on 48 by 48 transmitters and receivers. This radar will be able to detect motorcycles beyond 200m, old tire on the road, 140 meters away and low and small hazards on the road.