Israel quit manufacturing after Sussita, but leads the world in auto tech
Israel has never been a great car manufacturing nation. In the late 1960s it produced the Sussita, with a fiberglass body and a Ford Anglia engine. It was affectionately known as “The Cube” because of its not-so-sleek lines. Government agencies were forced to buy the Sussita, largely because nobody else would.
Israel has moved on from actually producing cars – with one or two minor exceptions – to become a world leader in the technology that powers them and helps drivers.
In June 2013, Waze, the sat-nav software company, was bought by Google for $1.3 billion. In March 2017, Mobileye, the advanced driver assistance system, was bought by Intel for $15.3 billion, the biggest-ever acquisition of an Israeli tech company.
Today there are more than 400 automotive startups in Israel, developing an array of technologies, from collision avoidance to autonomous cars, from electric vehicle batteries to AI systems that check cars for faults. Here’s just a snapshot of some of the advances it’s making.
Beating “forgotten baby syndrome”
Guardian OpTech has a device that fits into the ceiling of a car and is so sensitive it can detect the beating of a human heart.
It identifies passengers in the vehicle and checks they’re wearing their seatbelts, but it can also save children left behind in hot cars.
In July, a three-year-old boy died after his parents left him in a car outside a preschool in South Florida, a victim of the so-called Forgotten Baby Syndrome. On average, 38 children under the age of 15 die each year from heatstroke after being left in a vehicle in the USA.
Guardian OpTech can message the driver… and switch on the car’s air conditioning.
The Tel Aviv-based startup uses a patented sensor that constantly scans, tracks, and determines the physical location of every person and object in the car, even without a direct line of sight.
The folding car
The City Transformer is a foldable car. The tiny two-seater is only 1.4 meters (4ft 7in) wide to start off with, but the wheels fold in so it will squeeze into the tightest of parking spaces. In the “city mode” it is just one meter wide (3ft 3in).
The CT-1 shape-shifting electric microcar is only 2.5 meters (8ft 2in) long, so four of them can park at right angles to the curb, in the space taken up by one regular car.
With the press of a button the driver can switch from city mode to performance mode, and reach speeds of up to 90km/h (56mph), with a range of 120km to 180km (75 miles to 110 miles) on less than an hour’s charge.
“We are excited about what City Transformer is doing to revolutionize the way we move in cities,” said Dani Shavit, CEO of Lubinski Group, one of Israel’s biggest car importers, which has invested heavily in the project.
“The urban transportation model is ripe for disruption and desperately needs some fresh ideas to take us into a new era of clean air and sustainable movement.”
City Transformer aims to start production in 2024, targeting the European market, followed by North America and Israel.
Israel’s United Hatzala, the medical emergency service, has signed up to buy 1,000 CT-1s for its volunteer responders so they can zip through traffic, and park with ease.
Robotaxis tackle Jerusalem traffic
Mobileye does a whole lot more than reprimand drivers for tailgating or straying out of their lane. It’s currently testing its robotaxis on the roads of Jerusalem, which could be great news for passengers, but not so great for cab drivers.
Once they’re approved for commercial use, the fully-automated vehicles will collect up to seven people and deliver them safely to their destination, without a driver.
Mobileye says it combines two independent autonomous driving systems, so that if one fails the other will take over. One relies on 11 surround cameras providing a 360° field view, the other uses LiDAR (laser imaging, detection, and ranging) and radar.
They serve as back-ups to each other, in what Mobileye calls its True Redundancy sensory system.
“Redundancy is essential when engineering safety-critical systems,” the company says. “The goal is to equip a system with multiple components or subsystems that perform the same function, so that if one were to fail, the overall system could still complete its task safely.”
In an unedited 40-minute video Mobileye shows its robotaxi completing “complex, real-world driving maneuvers despite harsh night-time roadway lighting and complicated road signs” including a jaywalker walking out into the street and a driver performing an illegal U-turn.
Saving drivers from stress and fatigue
CU-BX uses artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to monitor a driver’s wellbeing and to raise an alert if there’s a problem.
It has developed a patented nano-motion detection system that is so sensitive it can measure heart rate, respiratory rate, and heart rate variability, and recognizes stress, fatigue or anything else that may impair a driver’s ability.
The technology works regardless of how many layers of clothes he or she is wearing, their physique, whether their face is obscured by sunglasses, a mask or other accessories, and lighting or road conditions. It’s designed to be easily integrated into private cars as well as fleets of trucks.
“Measuring anything in a vehicle is incredibly difficult,” said Eran Hochstadter, the company’s VP of Business Development. “Driving is one of the riskiest things the average person does on a daily basis.
“It is unpredictable which makes it hard to accurately measure, track and improve. Our patented technology keeps the roads safer. We monitor stress, thermal comfort and key health conditions of drivers irrespective of the road conditions, clothing or physique of the driver.”
Extra that eye sees everything
The Viper thermal camera, developed by Israeli startup AdaSky can “see” a pedestrian even if the driver can’t. Even in heavy rain, blinding sunlight, dense fog or an unlit road on a dark night, it can alert the driver to a person or an animal, using far infrared light waves (FIR) to measure the heat the emit.
It can detect objects more than 200 meters (220 yards) away and can be integrated into automatic emergency braking systems to avoid a collision.
Yakov Shaharabani, the company’s CEO, believes the thermal camera, costing around $100, could be “the next air bag” in terms of road safety.
William Grabowski, head of AdaSky North America, said: “Unlike radar, LiDAR or daytime camera technology, no ambient light or active signal is required for thermal cameras to detect and classify vulnerable road users in every operating condition.
“AdaSky uses AI technology to monitor the cameras while the driver has their eyes on the road, and it gives a heads-up when something that could be hazardous is spotted. Another difference from pedestrian detection systems is that they are limited to the area covered by the car’s headlights, while thermal cameras can see much further.”
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