Self-driving cars are not really pushed by the automotive industry but by the IT sector.
According to the European Patent Office report, there were only 922 patents for self-driving in 2011, but this figure quadrupled between 2011 and 2017, with 3998 autonomous car inventions and ideas being recorded.
Samsung has been most keen on registering patents. Leading the line with 624 protected ideas, the second is the US IT giant, Intel (590), followed by Qualcomm (361) and LG ELectronics (348), followed by the first company we'd done in the first place if you have to guess: Bosch with entry 343.
Of course, there is a reason for Samsung's self-driving driving activity. On the one hand, the Korean company is struggling with Apple in the mobile telephony industry, and it is well known that the American tech company also pays special attention to the research and development of autonomous vehicles. On the other hand, Samsung has an interest in the automotive industry. We also know some of the Renault-Samsung Motors products (the first generation of Koleos, Latitude), but Samsung models are the stand-alone brands in the Far East markets. We've been getting news from time to time about Samsung's autonomous car R&D investment: $ 300 million research fund was created in 2017, and last year, the DRVLINE IT platform, which can be the technical basis for their future self-driving car. But the fact that the Korean company is so excited about its activity in the innovation of the automotive industry and the industrial companies that are closely related to the automotive industry, we did not suspect.
(Source: vezess.hu / photo: pixabay.com)