connected-cars
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ECARX wants to own the brains behind your dashboard
Its technology rides in roughly 12 million vehicles. Now ECARX is betting on richer cockpit computers and a $266 million software deal to make more of the money behind the screen.
INRIX Bet the Road Would Become a Sensor - Now It Sells the Traffic Jam
After 70 investor rejections, INRIX replaced helicopters and roadside loops with a moving network of vehicles. Twenty years later, its harder job is turning a 50-petabyte data lake into answers cities, carmakers and logistics teams will actually pay for.
Volkswagen Tried to Build One Brain for Nine Car Brands. CARIAD Learned Where Not to Do It Alone
CARIAD was supposed to give Volkswagen a single software spine. Delays, executive turnover and billions in annual losses forced a more useful idea: own the layers that create leverage, and partner for the ones that do not.
Cadillac Is Rewiring a 124-Year-Old Luxury Machine
The brand that once made tailfins a national mood is attempting a harder trick: carrying American luxury into the electric age without sanding off its personality.
Volkswagen Built an American Car Company Inside a German Icon
Volkswagen of America sells more than cars. It translates a global industrial system into an American ownership experience - from Chattanooga assembly and dealer financing to the ID. Buzz, myVW and a second-generation Atlas.
HARMAN International
You may know the speaker. You probably do not know the company inside the dashboard. HARMAN has spent seven decades turning sound science into a sprawling business across homes, stages and more than 50 million vehicles.
Stellantis
Fourteen car brands, one Dutch holding company, and a bet that a constellation beats a single star. Inside the automaker stitched together from Jeep, Peugeot, Fiat and Maserati - and the reset now under way.
Ford Motor Company
Ford put America on wheels by mastering the moving line. Its next act is harder: turning trucks, fleet data, finance and software into one business without pricing ordinary drivers out of the future.
Saferoad Information Technology LTD.
Saferoad Information Technology is a Saudi telematics and IoT company based in Al Khobar that builds both the hardware and the software behind vehicle tracking and fleet management. Founded by Mohannad Alhaj in 2009, it positions itself as the Kingdom's first and only full-stack telematics provider - designing its own GPS trackers, dash cams and sensors while running an AI-driven cloud platform for fleet monitoring, driver-behavior scoring, cold-chain compliance, car sharing and school-bus safety. Its stated mission is to reduce road fatalities and improve driving behavior across Saudi Arabia, serving corporate and government clients including Saudi Aramco, Saudi Post, SAPTCO and the Transport General Authority.
Upshift
Upshift is a San Francisco car subscription service for people who drive a few days a month but don't want the cost and hassle of owning a car. Members pick a flexible monthly plan, get a clean late-model hybrid (Toyota Prius or Corolla Hybrid) delivered with insurance, maintenance, and refueling included, and skip parking tickets, repairs, and long-term loans. Founded in 2012 by Ezra Goldman and Ayako Hiwasa, the company frames itself as 'the ownership alternative for low-mileage city drivers' and is positioning for an autonomous, connected, electrified future of car non-ownership.
Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies
Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies (RV Tech) is a 50/50 joint venture launched in November 2024 that fuses Rivian's software and electrical-hardware know-how with Volkswagen Group's global manufacturing scale. Co-headquartered in Palo Alto, it builds the zonal electrical architecture, operating systems, in-vehicle AI, and cloud-connectivity stack that will power next-generation software-defined vehicles across Volkswagen, Audi, Scout, Rivian, and more - aiming to make every new car smarter, cheaper to build, and continuously upgradable over the air.
Motorq
Motorq is a connected vehicle intelligence platform that ingests embedded OEM telematics data, runs analytics and AI on top, and ships it to fleets, automakers, insurers, and dealers via APIs and a portal - no aftermarket hardware required.
Julien Nguyen
Julien Nguyen is a French-educated General Partner at IT-Farm Corporation, a Tokyo-and-Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with ~$100M under management across seven funds. A serial entrepreneur who founded four startups before pivoting to venture capital, he holds 21 US patents and was an early investor in Zoom (Series A), Wish, and Treasure Data. Based in Menlo Park, California, he bridges the US and Japanese technology ecosystems, helping global startups expand into Japan and Asia while backing transformative technologies in digital health, IoT, robotics, and AI.