Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2017

Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean • 2017
Chapter II
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(The Telegraph, 2017). In partnership with Argo AI, Ford expects to develop technology
that can be licensed to other players in this segment to generate additional revenue
(Forbes, 2017b).
General Motors is one of the few vehicle manufacturers that has sought to develop
endogenous technological capabilities, for which it has made a series of acquisitions.
In early 2016, it purchased the assets of Sidecar, a mobility platform; and it invested
US$ 500 million in Lyft, the Uber competitor with which it entered into a partnership
to develop a private transport service with autonomous vehicles. Shortly afterwards, it
bought the small-business software firm, Cruise Automation, for US$ 688 million to speed
up the company’s development of autonomous automobile technology. This strategy
has quickly yielded good results: Cruise Automation technology prototypes are being
tested in Arizona, as are those of Google. In 2018, General Motors intends to launch an
autonomous version of its Chevrolet Bolt electric car, which will be used primarily by
Lyft (Fortune, 2017c). Lastly, General Motors has internally developed a semiautonomous
technology that will be launched on the market in its high-end Cadillac models in 2018
(Autoblog, 2017). Although the firm has been more cautious about revealing its plans, it
is known that 40 Chevrolet Bolt autonomous vehicles have been tested with an engineer
in the driver’s seat in several cities across the United States. It is highly likely that the
first autonomous cars will be used under General Motors’ agreement with Lyft.
Since 2016, Nissan has been marketing the Serena model in Japan, with ProPilot
technology that makes it possible to drive automatically in a lane with no hands on the
steering wheel. Nissan has announced the next version of ProPilot for 2018, which will
automate lane changes; and in 2020 it will launch new features capable of automating driving
in even more complex environments such as intersections and urban routes. In early 2017,
Nissan began testing an autonomous vehicle on various roads in Europe. The autonomous
Nissan Leaf model includes millimetre-wave radar, laser scanners, cameras, high-speed
computer chips and a specialized human-machine interface, among many other components.
It also introduced Seamless Autonomous Mobility (SAM), a technology developed by the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which uses artificial intelligence to
help partially autonomous vehicles make decisions in unpredictable situations.
In recent months, other major manufacturers have also unveiled their plans for
autonomous driving. In late 2016, the PSA Group confirmed that a fleet of 15 prototypes
had travelled more than 120,000 kilometers in autonomous mode along several European
highways (including a fully autonomous trip between Paris and Bordeaux). In March 2017,
the firm announced the start of testing with autonomous vehicles and non-expert drivers
in Paris, as part of the Autonomous Vehicles for All (AVA) programme. Following these
tests, it plans to market the first semi-autonomous vehicles in 2020 (PSA Group, 2017). In
addition, in early 2017, Hyundai introduced a first autonomous version of its Ioniq model,
with a LiDAR system included (PCWorld, 2017). 20
(b) New entrants: the entry of global digital platforms
The new trends are putting a strain on the entire vehicle production chain. In this
turbulent scenario, changes in industry leadership are likely to occur, with the entry of
new players, mainly from the technological frontier; and there will be strong pressures for
traditional manufacturers to speed up and strengthen innovation initiatives in technology,
corporate management and the business model. At the same time, a new generation
of strategic partnerships between companies from different sectors is gathering pace.
20
The LiDAR system is a technology that is highly coveted among the leading manufacturers. It consists of a radar-like system, which
uses lasers instead of radio waves to construct a three-dimensional image of the surrounding landscape. As satellite navigation
systems are only accurate to less than five meters and can easily be confused by tall buildings and glass, autonomous vehicles
require a series of additional sensors to accurately position themselves and detect pedestrians, vehicles and other objects.