German suppliers at CES: Robotaxis and dancing robots

at The end of his appearance at the consumer electronics trade fair CES in Las Vegas, the German auto supplier Continental makes a robot dance. In the casino city in Nevada, the company from Hanover has just introduced a whole range of future products or services, which should all help to shape the future of mobility. The last moments but a four-legged robot designed to master a particular challenge, where even vehicles without a human driver to deliver packages: How is the delivery to the receiver, if the Autonomous car is no driver is?

Martin Gropp

editor in the economy.

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continental’s answer is: In the automated car automated robots take the package itself to the door or safely in a packing station or a package letter-box drop to wait as well. And since the robot just below the technology-oriented audience of the CES storms always arouse true enthusiasm, swinging the delivery robot, a little dance. It is soul music. The applause is big.

Old business

Continentals to replace the delivery robot is only one of many examples of the innovations which German suppliers at the fair in Las Vegas are represented. As different as the presented developments in the Individual are also, but they have one thing in common: they want to expand the business of the company new fields, and possibly in the future, dwindling sales of old and end-of-business fields to replace – for example, from divisions which work on the internal combustion engine.

All the innovations are based on the major developments in the car industry: the progressive electrification of the drives, the networked or automated Driving and new mobility services such as Carsharing or ridesharing services, i.e. the so-called Ridesharing.

competition for Robotaxis

Just about these services, contact the three major suppliers to the announcements, soon, soon, in a competition. Because whether it’s Bosch, Continental and ZF Friedrichshafen – are all three present at CES, so-called Roboshuttles or Robotaxis: self-driving buses are small so that customers can book via a Smartphone App, then you will be picked up and be transported. However, the three suppliers are obviously in different stages of development.

Continental, for example, has already begun in the summer of two years ago, to test his Robotaxi on own factory premises in Frankfurt. ZF, in turn, will deliver its, in cooperation with the E. Go Mobile AG produced Autonomous Transporter in the course of this year to the French company Transdev. In the medium term, according to ZF in the year, a five-digit number of Shuttle vehicles is to be created, regardless of whether you been driving autonomously or with a driver on the road.