I love you my dear car!

Going by tech trends you will soon be able to have emotional relationships with your cars. Yes, in the future everything will have a relationship with everything. Cars with people. Beds with thermostats. Washing machines with smarthome devices like Amazon Echo.

The Faraday Future FF 91, a family-sized electric vehicle with the acceleration of a Formula 1 car and a “brain” that will apparently be capable of learning from its driver, was unveiled at a media event recently, before Toyota and Honda took the concept of an intelligent car even further.

Toyota showed off its “Concept-i” concept car, which it described as: “More than a machine. It will become our friend”.

The Concept-i has an advanced artificial intelligence system called “Yui”. Yui is like a faithful dog, or a needy boyfriend.

“Yui learns from us, grows from us, builds a relationship that’s meaningful and emotional,” Bob Carter, Toyota’s senior vice-president of automotive operations, was quoted as saying in The Guardian.

Yui can tell when the driver is happy or sad and adjust the mood inside the car accordingly. It can even limit driving speed if its driver is feeling particularly sad.

Honda showed that it is chasing the same relationship goals by unveiling its NeuV car. In the future Honda vehicles will “enable machines to artificially generate their own emotions”, the company said.

Executives said the race to develop emotional vehicles was important because in the future – probably a long time in the future – all cars will drive themselves. What customers will seek then, car companies believe, is which car they can have the best relationship with.


But the tech developments are not confined to cars alone. But most of the digital relationships are more sedate. The Sleep Number 360 bed reacts to a person’s sleeping position during the night, and claims to be able to prevent snoring. The LG Hub Robot – an Amazon Echo competitor – can interact with a fridge, washing machine, vacuum cleaner and oven. Interactivity is everywhere.

There are already countless electronic devices that connect and report data to smartphones – activity trackers being the most obvious example

Take the Onvi Prophix toothbrush. It has a camera that streams live video to a smartphone app, enabling the user to see inside their mouth as they are brushing.

The video toothbrush comes with four different heads including a model for “people with crooked teeth". The Prophix is due to go on sale later in the year, priced at $399 (£322), which is a lot of money for a toothbrush.

The launch of the “world’s first smart hairbrush” also drew attention. The “Kérastase hair coach powered by Withings” has a microphone that listens as you brush your hair, “providing insights into manageability, frizziness, dryness, split-ends and breakage”. It goes on sale in mid-2017 and will cost $200.

Then there is Jyro, a one-wheeled gyroscopic skateboard and “the world’s most advanced massage chair” apart from the PowerRay, the underwater drone that will detect and take footage of fish, and controlled by VR goggles.

The future never looked so exciting.

Innovate & adapt (Last Part)

Will electric car need insurance? “Yes,” of course say experts like Niall Edwards, partner at international law firm Kennedys. Fully autonomous vehicles are likely to be considered a different class of vehicle that requires addition al compulsory insurance cover, he says.

“The most likely product will be a package underwritten by a motor insurer that the manufacturer offers at the point of purchase, use or hire.” One possibility is that new vehicles fitted with advanced-driver technology will automatically come with a form of product liability and extended cover provided by the manufacturer.

The good news is that because semi- and fully autonomous cars are expected to lead to a fall in accidents, we are likely to see a drop in premiums. “The price you pay will be much more influenced by the technical capabilities of the car as opposed to estimations of the riskiness of the driver.”

Regulations on vehicle use will therefore need to be revised to allow the use of automotive technology without a driver and – crucially – to ensure that the technology is maintained correctly.

To start with, laws governing motor vehicles need to be amended to include product liability for automated vehicles. But it's certain that AVs will reduce the risks for pedestrians and cyclists? We’re only at the start of understanding how pedestrians and cyclists will interact with a vehicle that doesn’t have a human driver at the controls, says an expert. “Whether a pedestrian will be able to detect whether a car is automated or not, and adapt their behaviour accordingly, we still don’t know.”

Another expert argues that there’s a risk, initially at least, that pedestrians and cyclists may try to “test” AVs to see how they react. “In Singapore, they are currently testing autonomous vehicles in public parks and they tell us that the large majority of incidents [near misses] are not due to the vehicles malfunctioning, but to people jumping in front of the cars to test whether they stop in time," he added.

Mixed traffic carries risk just as there may be risks associated with behavioural patterns we cannot foresee. As with any new technology, there will be failures and even fatalities, but the overall benefits – in terms of [estimated] 90% fewer accidents, 40% less congestion, up to 80% less emissions, and 50% of parking space saved – are so substantial that the technological development will prevail.”

Today’s AV sector is a crowded space. It’s estimated that at least 33 tech and auto corporations, ranging from Apple to Chinese bus manufacturer Yutong – via the likes of Audi, BMW, Google, Honda, Intel, Tesla, Uber and Volkswagen – are currently developing AV technology.

With the $2tn global car industry in the throes of transformation due to a perfect storm of digitisation, AI/automation and changes in consumer behaviour – such as the rise of on-demand taxi services in urban centres – it’s not difficult to see why car manufacturers, tech companies and investors are scrambling for territory, fearful of being left out. “All this change creates both risk and opportunity for incumbents,” say experts.

Some of them claim that since the car industry has historically only focused on the internal combustion engine and shell design, it has no chance against the tsunami of software moving towards their shores. Across the board, major players – Renault-Nissan, Ford, BMW, Daimler and GM, to name a few - are investing in and developing their own technologies, hiring talent or acquiring startups. From GM investing $500m in Lyft to the creation of Ford Smart Mobility, every single big manufacturer is looking to innovate and adapt.


Besides, any notion of a race between tech firms and traditional car makers is a false perception, argues Accenture’s Luca Mentuccia. He predicts a surge of strategic cooperation instead. “We will see even more cross-industry partnerships for autonomous driving in the future in which car makers and a large range of tech firms from chipmakers to big data specialists, telcos and mobility platforms will work together.

On a driverless car with Policy Nation --- Part 1

Are you driven by a desire to know more about driverless cars? We are glad to share basic facts about it.  Experts believe that over the next decade, accelerating autonomous driving technology, including advances in artificial intelligence, sensors, cameras, radar and data analytics, are set to transform not only how we drive but the notion of car ownership itself.

To begin with: The six levels of automation, defined under international standards by the Society of Automotive Engineers, range from “no automation” to “full automation and the majority of car manufacturers estimate the first highly to fully automated vehicles [AVs] will hit the market between 2020-2025.

AVs will enable new service configurations where consumers are delivered door to door with virtually no stops in a comfortable vehicle with just one to three other passengers.

Such services will be safer, reduce pollution and congestion, and will also bring about a paradigm shift in personal vehicle ownership rates, which are likely to decline steeply, according to an expert quoted in The Guardian. A recent survey of car manufacturing executives by KPMG similarly revealed that 59% of industry bosses believe that more than half of all car owners today will no longer want to own a car by 2025.

Instead of today’s car ownership model, we are far more likely to rely on “mobility as a service” by 2030. "Imagine an Uber-like service you can summon at the touch of a button, but without a driver. Renting is not necessarily the right word – consumers will buy a service like using an Uber today, but with a wider range of vehicle configurations to suit different types of travel – family outings, long-distance sleeper travel, or shared commutes,” says the article in The Guardian.

Will there still be crashes?

A 2008 survey by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that human error is the critical reason for 93% of crashes. When you eliminate human error, our roads become dramatically safer: no more drink-driving, phone calls at the wheel, carelessness, inattention or plain bad driving. Clearly there needs to be adequate industry testing to ensure that AVs are safe for all other road users, but we can look forward to far safer roads as human drivers become a thing of the past.

Will all cars be electric? The jury is still out it. Bosch is developing a lithium-ion solid state battery that they hope will double the range of electric vehicles at half the cost of today’s batteries, which will increase take-up among those who live in the suburbs and beyond. According to a projection by 2025, globally 15% of vehicles are going to have an electric component, whether that’s a pure electric vehicle, a plug-in hybrid or full hybrid.

By definition, a driverless car has more control units, computing power, lines of code, and wireless connections with the outside world than a regular car today, which is why it may be more vulnerable to hackers. A hacker can potentially take control of the car, through exploitation of a weakness, and could cause the vehicle to refuse to start, or to crash, or it could exploit the privacy of the driver, and [their] data, including financial information.

But experts are working on enhancing the security levels.

From vertical take-off and landing “flying car” prototypes to “sidewalk robots” and delivery drones, by 2030 our roads and pavements may have begun to resemble a scene from Blade Runner.

Driverless trucks are already being tested around the world, with Daimler testing on public roads in the US and Germany in 2016. Bosch meanwhile, envisages that a truck will become “a 40-tonne smart device on wheels” by 2025. “[The trucks] will receive all the data they need in real time from the Bosch IoT cloud, including information on the route, congestion, detours, and unloading facilities at the destination,” says an expert. “This will allow the driver to get on with other things [such as processing shipping documents], while the truck drives itself.”

Travel Tips With Baby On Board

Sooner or later, the time will come to take your little one on the road. Good news — you can get him or her buckled up and ready to go in no time with these travel tips for road-tripping with babies. 

If you’ve carefully planned your trip and prepared your vehicle, you’ve already started out on the right foot. Now keep these things in mind as you make your way down the road.

Be flexible. When traveling with a baby, even the best-laid plans can be disrupted. Try to stay relaxed, accept changes, and go with the flow.

Stop when you need to. Trying to push “just a little farther” with a crying baby in the car can be dangerous, as you’re distracted and nervous. Take the time to stop and calm your baby.

Put safety first. Make sure that you keep your baby in his or carseat. Many nursing mothers breastfeed their babies during trips. This can be dangerous in a moving car, even if you are both securely belted: You can’t foresee an accident, and your body could slam forcefully into your baby. Instead, pull over and nurse your baby while he’s still in his carseat. That way, when he falls asleep, you won’t wake him up moving him back into his seat.

Remember: Never, ever leave your baby alone in the car –  not even for a minute.

Here are some more tips from another expert

Hit the road when your baby hits snooze. Got a baby who sleeps willingly in his or her car seat? Then you've got it made — just plan to do the bulk of your driving during her usual naptime.

Pack for playtime. If your baby tends to be an (audibly) unhappy passenger (or your travel schedule is set so you’re on the road when she's wide awake), it's time for plan D: Distractions! 

Any time you’ll be driving with your baby, be sure to grab some of her favorite music and toys to pack in her baby bag. Or you can surprise her with new toys, too — the novelty will buy you a bit of extra time.

Stay in your seat. Is your baby a pacifier fan? Try this car-safety solution for both of you — get a tether that clips her binky to her shirt or car-seat strap. That'll make driving with a baby easier (and safer) since you won't have to unbuckle and dive under the seats every time she's dropped her pacifier.

Buckle everything up. Don’t put on the brakes after your baby’s been secured. 

Take this baby-travel tip with you: Keep everything strapped in. Use a tether or set of plastic links to attach some toys to the seat so she’s constantly entertained (and so nothing falls to the floor to cue crying). You can also fasten a lightweight, unbreakable mirror to the seat in front of her — as you’ve probably noticed, babies love a looking glass.

Switch it up. If there's another adult on board take turns — one drives, one entertains the baby. 

Give it a rest. When it's mealtime, make a pit stop. You might lose a few minutes, but it’s much easier than dining and driving with baby. That’s a messy, complicated business, and it’s none too safe to juggle bottles, jars, and spoons while you're hurtling down the highway.

Take bathroom breaks. Take advantage of rest stop changing tables to get your baby out of her diaper before you get back on the road. And when you travel with a baby, you also want to travel with a changing pad. It’s a must-have for covering those questionably clean public changing tables.

For more safety tips or to get the best insurance at the lowest premium, click here http://bit.ly/2fU27FH or call 9003022252.

What Is A No-Claim Bonus And How Can You Benefit From It?

A no-claims bonus can shave a significant amount off your premium. If you make a claim on your policy where your insurer pays out, you’ll generally lose some, or all, of your no-claims bonus. Most policyholders are familiar with the broad concept of NCB but often they do not understand the finer details. 

Here we shed light on the key aspects of NCB available on renewal of policy.

In broad terms, No Claim Bonus, is the insurer's incentive to the policyholder for not making a claim in the preceding years. That is, NCB ­ which is a discount ranging from 20­50% on premium payable cannot be claimed as a right but has to be earned by maintaining a claim­free record. 

When you buy your first comprehensive motor insurance policy, you are normally (except in the rare case of NCB transfer) not eligible for any NCB discount on the 

premium paid because you have no claim­free record as such. You can claim a starting NCB of 20% on the first renewal of the policy provided there has been no claim during the past year. 

This discount increases steadily with every claim free year up to a maximum of 50% at the end of five claim free years. NCB belongs to you, not your car. This is the key feature of NCB ­Therefore, you get to retain your NCB if you replace your existing car with a new one or if you switch to another insurer at the time of renewal of the policy. 

NCB transfer is no rocket science: Assume you had purchased a car in 2010, which was then sold in 2015 on or after the 5 policy anniversary. If you never made a claim during the period, you would have earned an NCB discount of 50%. Now, suppose you bought a new car in 2015 and the premium for this car's policy was Rs 18,000 (excluding service tax), out of which Rs 15,000 is the premium for the own damage component. You can transfer the NCB earned on the previous car policy to the new car policy and claim the NCB discount on the first premium payable for the new policy. 

But a person ­to ­person transfer is not allowed, except to the legal heir in case he/she inherits the car on the policyholder's death. 

Transferring NCB is a simple procedure. You have to submit forms 29, 30 (buyer­seller agreement form) along with the letter requesting for transfer of NCB to your existing insurer. Next, the insurer has to issue an NCB certificate, which is valid for three years and you need to submit it to your new insurer.

If you are switching to a new insurer at the time of policy renewal for your existing car, you only need your last year's policy document or renewal notice that mentions the NCB you are eligible for.

Do note the NCB discount is applicable only to the own damage premium component and not the third party liability premium, which constitutes 15­20% of the total premium. If you have only third party car insurance no NCB is earned irrespective of the number of years the policy has been renewed and whether any claims have been made or not.

It is recommended that you do not make a claim for very minor damages keeping the NCB benefits in mind.

You lose NCB even when you make a very small claim. You can safeguard your NCB with a protect add­on cover which is subject to certain restrictions.

The maximum NCB policyholders are entitled to is 50%.

For more information on NCB or to get an instant quote or to speak with an insurance expert, click here http://bit.ly/2fU27FH or call 9003022252.

The $ 93 billion automotive industry contributes 7.1% to India’s GDP

India is a well recognized automobile manufacturing hub in the world because of its low cost production. Cheap labor, easy availability and low cost of raw materials and weak currency are the factors that are driving manufacturing Industry. 

India is the 7th largest producer of automobiles in the world with an average annual production of 23.36 Million vehicles and is expected to become the 3rd largest automotive market by volume.

Automobile accounts for 7.1% of the country's GDP by volume. As expected, more than six million vehicles will be sold annually in India, by 2020. Automobile component industry reached a mammoth US$ 41 billion in FY 2014-15 and is expected to reach US$ 110.7 billion by 2020. Growing working population and expanding middle class are the main drivers for the growth of automobile and automobile components industry in India.

India is the largest tractor manufacturer, 2nd largest two- wheeler manufacturer, 2nd largest bus manufacturer, 5th largest heavy truck manufacturer, 6th largest car manufacturer and 8th largest commercial vehicle manufacturer.

For every vehicle produced, direct and indirect employment opportunities are created with employment of 13 persons for each truck, 6 persons for each car and 4 for each three- wheeler and one person for two-wheelers.  The $ 93 billion automotive industry contributes 7.1% to India’s GDP and almost 49% to the nation’s manufacturing GDP (FY 2015-16).

As a major employment generator, GDP contributor and FDI earner, the automotive industry is instrumental in shaping the country’s economy and hence regarded as a 'Sunrise sector' under Make in India.

In order to further promote the sector, initiatives are being undertaken by the Government of India to promote innovation and R&D and create a favourable policy regime to make India a prominent manufacturing destination.

The Automobile Mission Plan 2016 – 2026 envisages creating India as one of the top three automobile manufacturing centres in the world with gross revenue of US $ 300 bn by 2026.

Leading global players like ISUZU Motors, FORD Motor, Tata Motors, and Suzuki Motor have invested heavily in the manufacturing sector resulting in the setup of new assembly lines, manufacturing and greenfield units thus boosting the manufacturing ecosystem in India.

Tata Motors and Fiat Ltd have set up joint assembly line to manufacture SUV cars at Ranjangaon unit (Pune), with an investment of US $ 280 mn.

Magneti Marelli, Fiat’s component manufacturing arm, opened a new manufacturing facility for the production of robotized gearboxes, in October 2015.

Pune based Force Motors inaugurated its Rs 100 crore greenfield plant in June 2016 for supplying engines and axles to Mercedes- Benz India.

Suzuki initiated a greenfield project in car and power train manufacturing in June 2015 near Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Mercedes Benz inaugurated  its second manufacturing facility in Chakan in July 2015.

Sales of Passenger vehicles increased by 7.24% in FY 2015-16 over the same period previous year. Within the Passenger Vehicles, Passenger Cars, Utility Vehicles and Vans grew by 7.87%, 6.25% and 3.58% respectively in FY 2015-16 over the same period previous year.

Overall Commercial Vehicles segment registered a growth of 11.51% in FY 2015-16 as compared to the same period previous year. Medium & Heavy Commercial Vehicles (M&HCVs) registered a growth at 29.91% and Light Commercial Vehicles grew marginally by 0.30% in FY 2015-16 over the same period previous year.

How Airbags Save Lives!

Bang! We think of explosions as terrible, dangerous things—but that's not always the case. Every day, explosions are helping to save people's lives. If you're unlucky enough to be involved in a car accident, a carefully controlled explosion will (hopefully) fire an airbag out from the dashboard, cushioning the impact and helping to reduce the damage to your body. Airbags are very simple but also amazingly clever, because they have to open up at over 300 km/h (200mph)—faster than a car can crash! Let's take a closer look at how they work.

An airbag is more correctly known as a supplementary restraint system (SRS) or supplementary inflatable restraint (SIR). The word "supplementary" here means that the airbag is designed to help the seatbelts protect you rather than replace them (relying on an airbag to protect you without fastening your seatbelt is extremely dangerous). 

The basic idea is that the airbag inflates as soon as the car starts to slow down in an accident and deflates as your head presses against it. That's important: if the bag didn't deflate, your head would just bounce back off it and you'd be no better off.

How airbags work

When a car hits something, it starts to decelerate (lose speed) very rapidly. An accelerometer (electronic chip that measures acceleration or force) detects the change of speed. If the deceleration is great enough, the accelerometer triggers the airbag circuit. Normal braking doesn't generate enough force to do this.

The airbag circuit passes an electric current through a heating element (a bit like one of the wires in a toaster).

The heating element ignites a chemical explosive. Older airbags used sodium azide as their explosive; newer ones use different chemicals.

As the explosive burns, it generates a massive amount of harmless gas (typically either nitrogen or argon) that floods into a nylon bag packed behind the steering wheel. As the bag expands, it blows the plastic cover off the steering wheel and inflates in front of the driver. The bag is coated with a chalky substance such as talcum powder to help it unwrap smoothly.

The driver (moving forward because of the impact) pushes against the bag. This makes the bag deflate as the gas it contains escapes through small holes around its edges. By the time the car stops, the bag should have completely deflated.

Over the years, protective systems have been improved and extended also. After driver and front passenger airbags, Mercedes-Benz developed sidebags and headbags for protection during lateral collisions – with great success. According to the findings of accident researchers, the probability of serious or fatal injury in the event of a lateral collision in a vehicle equipped with headbags is reduced by more than half. The proportion of seriously and fatally injured occupants in lateral collisions fell significantly in the cases examined.

Protective systems are becoming more and more intelligent. Belt tensioners, for instance, improve the protective effect of seatbelts. Multi-stage airbags respond according to accident severity. All in all, the control systems for these onboard safety features now have the processing power of the ‘supercomputers’ used in space exploration 25 years ago.

Although perhaps not as influential as the seatbelt, the airbag’s contribution to vehicle safety is indeed significant – and when combined with a safety harness unparalleled in terms of saving lives and reducing injury. 

All safety experts agree that the airbag can never be a substitute for seatbelts. It is only in conjunction with a seatbelt that it becomes an optimally coordinated system that demonstrably makes a major contribution to the prevention of severe or fatal injuries to the occupants during serious accidents.