At this year's Paris Motor Show, Valeo is unveiling its latest technological innovations. These innovations are at the epicenter of the revolutions that are disrupting mobility as we know it, the company said: the autonomous vehicle, vehicle electrification and digital mobility.
In particular, Valeo is staging the open-road world debut of its Valeo Drive4U demo car, the first autonomous vehicle to be demonstrated on the streets of Paris itself. The car is equipped exclusively with ultrasonic sensors, cameras, laser scanners and radars already series produced by Valeo, and artificial intelligence, giving it a full-fledged digital brain. The technology is able to manage all the information collected by the sensors and learn from the complex scenarios it encounters in the city.
Valeo Drive4U can already handle a wide variety of driving situations in urban environments, including undivided roads, intersections, traffic lights, tunnels and even streets with no markings. The car also knows how to deal with cyclists and pedestrians.
At the 2018 Paris Motor Show, Valeo is also presenting its 48V solutions to make electric vehicles much more affordable, as well as the first all-electric urban prototype powered by a 48V Valeo motor. The prototype gives a glimpse of what tomorrow's affordable urban vehicles could be like, designed to be just the right size for their intended use, according to the company. It can reach speeds of 100 km/h, has a range of 150 km and does not emit any CO2. Valeo is also unveiling the world’s first 48V plug-in hybrid vehicle, the company said.
Lastly, since usage patterns are changing, with digital tools giving access to new ways of getting around, Valeo is developing technologies that promote the rise of intelligent mobility. One example of this is the real-time map of air quality in Paris, a project in partnership with ARIA Technologies. A fleet of some twenty vehicles equipped with Valeo sensors will travel around Paris to measure levels of six pollutants in real time. For Valeo, understanding pollution levels in urban areas is a vitally important step toward creating new, cleaner mobility solutions. By having precise information on air quality in a specific location, it will be possible, for example, to generate customized routes to avoid peaks in pollution, or activate pollution control systems inside cars.
With these innovations, Valeo is working to imagine, design and develop technologies that are conducive to the development of electric, autonomous, connected cars that are widely affordable yet adaptable to individual needs.
