French automotive maker Groupe PSA has unveiled the first connected car from its burgeoning connectivity partnership with Chinese telecoms vendor Huawei. The new DS 7 Crossback, on display at Hannover Messe and launched in China, is based on Groupe PSA’s new ‘connected vehicle modular platform’ (CVMP), which uses Huawei’s OceanConnect IoT platform.
Groupe PSA, which has the Peugeot, Citroën and Vauxhall car marques on its books, struck a partnership with Huawei back in November, focused on service enablement of connected cars. The French company’s CVMP provides access connected navigation, natural language voice recognition and a connected service portal via the vehicle’s dashboard screen. The vehicle’s maintenance status and the history of journeys and driving styles are also accessible from the customer’s smartphone.
CVMP is designed to integrate with works with consumer smart home and smart city solutions, as well. It will be deployed globally on top of Huawei’s Cloud Family public cloud to connect both vehicles and different industries. It will
Jean Leflour, senior vice president of connected vehicles and services architecture at PSA Group, said: “With five car brands, a wide array of mobility and smart services through our brand FreeMove, PSA Group has engaged a wide and in-depth transformation with our strategy plan on deployment – moving beyond traditional activity of an OEM to become the preferred services provider.”
Dominique Shaler, head of infortainment at Group PSA, said: “We launched our partnership with Huawei in November 2017 and six months later a new car is launched. But it’s only the first step. Our roadmap is highly confidential, but we say every six months that [we] will announce something new.”
New services for private customers and fleet managers will be added, including remote software updates and navigation mapping, personal assistant, remote vehicle diagnostic and maintenance functions, and services useful for car hire companies, fleet managers and car-sharing operators.
Huawei said its OceanConnect IoT platform will be used for all Groupe PSA’s connected vehicles in all regions. Leon He, head of automotive at Huawei’s enterprise division, said: “The key to successful digital transformation of car manufacturers is to build a digital cloud platform. Based on the platform, car manufacturers, ecosystem developers, and industry application partners are gathered to jointly sell vehicle products and services across countries in the global market and provide personalized travel services to car owners and users.”
Meanwhile, Huawei also used Hannover Messe to announce an ongoing narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) pilot of security cameras and smart lighting with Telefónica at Munich Airport. The NB-IoT trial is to provide connectivity in and around the airport. The deployment has coincided with Telefonica’s work with Munich Airport to analyse big data in the airport facility.
The new NB-ioT trial started at the end of March 2018.
