All roads lead to Israel for global carmakers
ISRAEL IS fast becoming the most important centre for self-driving car technology outside of Silicon Valley, with some of the world’s biggest car makers rushing to invest in the country.
General Motors, Renault-Nissan and Porsche are among nearly a dozen companies that, over the past two years, have announced new technology centres in the country, where a stretch of motorway has been allocated exclusively to car testing.
With World Health Organisation figures suggesting 1.25 million people are killed worldwide in road accidents every year, there is a growing consensus that self-driving cars can do a much better job than human drivers.
“Israel has a rare opportunity to lead the smart transportation world thanks to our unique knowhow in the fields of big data, cyber, image processing and others,” said Avi Simhon, a senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at this month’s Fuel Choices and Smart Mobility Ini- tiative summit in Tel Aviv. Professor Simhon was addressing top executives from virtually every global carmaker and Tier I parts supplier.
Immediately afterwards, some of them announced that they would be opening development offices in Israel to scout for start-up investments.
SEAT president Luca de Meo announced the establishment of XPLORA, “an Israeli-based team of specialists focused on technological innovation projects aimed at the connected car and smart mobility services.”
Hyundai chief innovation officer Youngcho Chi announced a new development centre.
But SEAT and Hyundai are latecomers. General Motors has a research and development facility in Israel with more than 200 software engineers, while Volvo, Honda, Renault-Nissan, Porsche, and Skoda have all announced technology centres in Israel over the past two years.
At the conference, Volkswagen chief customer officer Peter Harris spoke about “creating a campus in Israel.”
This would augment the $300 million (£228 million) that Volkswagen has already invested in Israeli taxi app Gett.
There are an estimated 550 start-ups in the country engaged in car-related technologies and many are based on acquisitions. Ford’s centre is based on Israeli start-up SAIPS, a company it acquired that develops machine learning through image and video processing.
A Daimler-Mercedes Benz development centre is also in the works: its existing investments include car sharing company Via; StoreDot, which is developing a long-life car electric battery; and Gauzy, which is developing smart glass for cars.
And no sooner had the Tel Aviv conference finished than German car parts manufacturer Continental AG announced it was buying Israeli car cybersecurity developer Argus — which has built software that protects car computers from hacking threats — for an estimated $450 million (£342 million).
A lot of the buzz around Israeli autotech was driven by Intel’s $15.3 billion (£11.6 billion) acquisition of Israeli car sensor developer Mobileye last March. The company is busy expanding its Jerusalem campus into the headquarters of Intel’s Autonomous Driving division.
The Israeli government has yet to push through regulations to allow selfdriving cars on the roads but it has allocated an unopened new stretch of Highway 531 north of Tel Aviv to auto-tech companies. The motorway, several miles long, is open to companies including General Motors and Mobileye wanting to try out their new technologies.
Israel is becoming a centre for self-driving cars