Delphi Aims to Connect Everything in New Self-Driving Car

Delphi Automotive LLC is adding new sensors, smartphone apps and communications capability to its prototype self-driving car. The company will demonstrate the specially equipped Audi SQ5 crossover vehicle next month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The latest upgrades, which Delphi calls vehicle-to-everything (V2E), will allow the car to communicate with other vehicles, pedestrians, traffic lights, street signs and third-party businesses. As a result, Delphi says, the vehicle will be better able to detect and avoid potential obstacles, anticipate yellow and red lights, adapt to traffic flow, send location updates to a driver’s friends and family, place food orders and reserve parking spots.

The updated car also will use the new solid state light-detection and ranging (lidar) system Delphi is developing with Quanergy Systems Inc. The technology is more sophisticated and reliable than the array of cameras, radar and other sensors previously used on Delphi’s self-driving prototype car, which completed a 3,400-mile trip across the U.S. earlier this year while operating under autonomous control 99% of the time.

Several other manufacturers have demonstrated lidar, but the laser source has been an ultra-pricey mechanical system—costing as much as $80,000 compared to $100 for a radar sensor. Quanergy expects its solid-state lidar to cost about $250 per unit, or $1,000 per car to provide 360˚ sensing capability with a sensor at each corner.

Delphi will introduce some semi-autonomous features next year on the all-new Cadillac CT6 sedan as part of the vehicle’s “Super Cruise” system. But the supplier doesn’t expect fully autonomous vehicles to arrive for at least a decade until regulatory, legal and consumer acceptance issues are worked out.