Autonomous - electrified - and shared
Continental has built a demo vehicle to enable driverless mobility, especially in cities. The vehicle, named CUbE (Continental Urban Mobility Experience) will start its trials at Continental's Frankfurt location, which contains a typical city infrastructure such as street signs, cross-traffic, pedestrian crossings and curbs, providing optimum conditions for a complex and therefore realistic route.

Many aspects of the technology used in the vehicle are based on the driver assistance systems and sensors that are already installed in today's serial production vehicles, but new technologies are also used, such as the laser sensor. Based on this expertise, these systems will be further developed to control the vehicle completely autonomously.

"The trials will be used to identify all the essential technical requirements that enable safe, driverless passenger transport in urban areas," says Dr. Andree Hohm, Head of the Self-Driving Car project at Continental. "This helps us to find answers to questions about our product strategy and to deliver leading technology for individual mobility in the future - including driverless systems."

Thanks to the CUbE, Continental is among the pioneers in crucial technology for robo-taxis. "In recent months, the topic has really moved into the limelight," says Jourdan. "This tells us that we have chosen exactly the right time for our bold approaches to practical testing, enabling us to pave the way towards the future." Driverless vehicles will use a great number of technologies with which Continental has vast experience - from sensors and control units to software algorithms, braking systems and powertrain technologies.

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