The Swedish innovation outfit called CEVT, wholly owned by Geely, have partnered with Startup Nation Central to identify technologies in Israel that could be implemented in Geely Auto Group’s processes and products.
CEVT, a research and development
company with over 2,000 employees—1,500 of whom are engineers—cover all aspects of passenger car development. Their leadership is increasingly visiting Israel with three core areas of interest: enhanced in-vehicle user experience, autonomous driving, and cybersecurity. CEVT are already working with six Israeli tech startups in various fields and stages of development.
Didier Schreiber, CEVT’s Senior VP of Innovation, explained his company’s perspective to Startup Nation Central:
“We are looking for technologies that provide new passenger experience or enhance already existing passenger experience in a car of today. In our search so far, we have for example come across an Israeli company working with virtual sound. Their solution is interesting as it provides the possibility of privacy in a space shared by many, meaning you can be sitting in a car with other people but still enjoy sound that only you can hear without using headphones.
“We are also exploring new possibilities that can define the mobility of tomorrow when the driver is no longer the one driving. As safety is important to us we are for example looking for solutions that are connected to the driver’s health and well-being. For example, we’re imagining that in the near future intelligent cars that understand that your health or physical status is not optimal, and you shouldn’t be driving, or that you’re getting sick or even close to getting a heart attack.
“We see startups as our partners that bring the spark to the table that most of the big company’s lack due to the size. Many of them have ideas that are in the early development stage or have ideas that need to be repackaged to fit our needs. We know how to conceptualise an idea and what it takes to take it into the mass production. We can package the concept in a way that fits a brand within the Geely brand portfolio. That’s what we bring to the table in our coöperation with the startups. So, we often help with the determination of a proof of concept, conducting maturity level assessment of the idea and explore the scalability of the idea. We take also on the task to demonstrate internally that the technologies the startups offer are mature enough to be implemented in a real project. To put it simply we are the door openers for the startups.
“We have been visiting Israel for about a year. We have a dedicated person Leif Axelsson, Innovation Strategy Director, who works actively with Israel innovation ecosystem. Leif has been busy during the past year. We currently have five real projects, and a sixth company that we have a serious discussion with, so, we are serious. We have also signed recently an MOU agreement with Technion, Israel Institute of Technology University in Haifa, as we believe that cooperation between industry and academia will speed up the development of tomorrow’s sustainable mobility. And we are not done yet.”
