“Innovating Transportation – From Road to Cloud!” is Continental’s tagline for this year’s IAA Transportation from September 17 to 22. In Hanover, Germany, the technology company will present its broad portfolio of commercial vehicle solutions. Amongst them: cutting-edge hardware such as high-performance computers (HPC); software and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) functions that define the vehicle of the future; comprehensive services that increase safety and compliance; and innovative truck and bus tires and air springs that improve sustainability and efficiency of the transportation industry. Also on display: a development truck, set up in collaboration with the company’s partner Aurora, that incorporates many of the solutions for the autonomous commercial vehicle of the future.
At Continental’s booth C41 in hall 12, trade fair visitors will be able to experience the company’s latest solutions for commercial vehicles and the transportation industry and to get to know the experts behind them in person.
Enabling intelligent services and software-defined vehicles
To tackle the need for greater efficiency, the transport industry is rapidly becoming digitalized. With seamless connectivity functions and software-defined architectures, Continental enables the use of real-time data-driven services that increase process automation and efficiency, reduce costs and downtimes and comply with legal requirements.
At IAA Transportation 2024, Continental will present cutting-edge HPCs and software alongside a complete ecosystem spanning from the road to the cloud, enabling the software-defined vehicle (SDV) as well as autonomous driving functions. These include a high-performance computer for the commercial vehicle cockpit and a cross-domain zone control unit, which integrates the power supply for cockpit and ADAS components. In addition, the technology company will showcase its Automotive Edge framework CAEdge, a cloud-based development environment which facilitates efficient, safe, and rapid development and testing of vehicle software. CAEdge is the base for several pre-development projects the company is currently working on with various OEMs to design the commercial vehicle architecture of the future. Amongst the intelligent services presented in Hanover that use real-time data to increase process automation and efficiency will be two new iterations of Continental’s ContiConnect digital tire management solutions: ContiConnect Lite, a mobile only solution with which customers can benefit from many advantages of data-supported tire monitoring, quickly and cost-effectively. Data of tire sensors is transferred via Bluetooth. And ContiConnect Pro, the all-encompassing solution for digital tire management and prediction services, providing a comprehensive overview of the fleets’ tire health, including alerts and the display of data in a web portal and mobile app.
Improving road transport sustainability
The pressure on the road transport industry to become more sustainable has increased – new regulations, rising fuel prices and increasing social and environmental awareness all play a role here. Continental is driving the ongoing transformation of both vehicle manufacturers and fleets towards a healthy ecosystem for sustainable mobility, providing material-driven innovations based on 150 years of experience with rubber and synthetics that create economic and ecological value for all stakeholders.
At IAA Transportation 2024, Continental will provide tangible evidence how it utilizes material competence to support the transport industry in reducing its impact on the environment, e.g. with the Tough RuNR air springs. In this product, the company’s material experts have substituted synthetic rubber with natural rubber that has been improved by a high-performance ethylene-propylene-diene rubber (EPDM). By doing so, the rubber compound’s carbon backpack is reduced by more than 50 percent while achieving the same product performance. Continental will also highlight how the use of recycled materials, improved recyclability of materials or the use of bio-based materials will improve the environmental impact of air springs in the future. Also on display: innovative technological solutions for the new energy vehicle (NEV) such as thermal-management for battery-electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles. At its pre-series stage is Continental’s newest bus tire that not only boasts a very low rolling resistance, but also combines a high share of recycled, renewable and mass-balanced certified materials and is also EV-compatible.
Empowering autonomous transport solutions
Autonomous technology has the potential to increase road safety and make the transport of goods more efficient, mitigating major global supply chain challenges like the ongoing driver shortage. Continental continues to drive forward the introduction of autonomous technology to the market with its ADAS solutions and wide sensor portfolio, key enablers for automated functions and autonomous vehicles. Through an exclusive partnership, Continental and Aurora are developing the world’s first scalable Level 4 autonomous trucking system with a planned start of production in 2027.
At IAA Transportation 2024, Continental will provide deeper insights into its progress with Aurora to develop and manufacture an automotive-grade Level 4 autonomous system at scale. After finalizing the design and architecture of the Aurora Driver hardware and a future fallback system earlier this year, Continental will present the new industrial fallback system. It is a specialized secondary system that can take over operation if a failure occurs in the primary system, e.g. a key component or sensor breaks or fails.
Supporting road transport safety
In a world of increasing transportation demands, road safety is a top priority. While governments and regulatory bodies are continuously implementing stricter safety standards and regulations for commercial road transport, Continental is committed to providing OEMs with turnkey solutions that make their trucks compliant for European roads, from radar sensors, cameras, and safety systems to intelligent and connected compliance devices.
In this context, two intelligent global tachograph solutions will be part of Continental’s exhibition, contributing to increased safety by helping to enforce the regulations of the EU Mobility Package and providing safe and reliable data services: the smart tachograph (V2) DTCO 4.1 and the plug-and-play solution VDO Link. Visitors to Continental’s booth can also experience a new truck tire that offers best in class energy efficiency in the market combined with outstanding braking performance.