Ericsson gets green light for connected car initiative

An Ericsson-led consortium has reason to celebrate European Union backing to develop 5G architecture for the connected car.

The ‘5GCAR project’ will receive the EU funding as part of phase 2 of the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership. A total of 21 projects have been retained out of 101 as part of the second phase, with €154 million to be split between the various initiatives.

“The European funding granted to our 5GCAR project is a major step, as it will allow our initiative to further develop in order to meet the market needs by 2020,” said Franck Bouetard, Head of Ericsson France. “Having such projects in Europe is key in this worldwide race, as it will secure additional business and employment in the continent in the future.”

The 5GCAR project will run for two years, from June 2017 to May 2019, and will employ around 30 full-time researchers with an €8 million budget. Current members include Bosch, King’s College London, Nokia, Orange, PSA Group, Huawei and Volvo. Objectives for the group include:

€8 million isn’t much in the great scheme of things but at least it’s something, and judging from the recent moan by a bunch of European telecoms associations they were lucky to get that.