Continental to Showcase the Future of Connected Vehicles at the Connected Car Expo in L.A.

Focused on "Trusted Connectivity," Continental's demo-vehicle offers innovative connectivity technology allowing drivers to seamlessly stay digitally connected on the road

-- Technology updates include industry leading connectivity with faster downloads, lower data transfer costs, seamless switching between Wi-Fi and cellular networks as well as advanced security

-- Jeff Klei, President, Continental North America, to speak on "The Pros & Cons of Connected Autonomy" panel

AUBURN HILLS, MI -- Nov. 13, 2014: To solve the connectivity challenge of moving vehicles, Continental, a leading international automotive supplier, is developing its next-generation telematics platform and will display a demonstration vehicle at the Connected Car Expo Tuesday, Nov. 18 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The vehicle, a product of Continental's collaboration with worldwide IT leader Cisco, showcases trusted connectivity offering robust, reliable, high speed and highly secure technology to drivers.

From voice over IP to music and video streaming, to over-the-air updates of vehicle electronics or connected navigation with real time map updates, the demands for trusted and robust connectivity are rapidly becoming a basic need for vehicles. But this rising demand stands in contrast to the confinements given by bandwidth or different generations of wireless data networks, which are especially challenging for the quality of connected services in moving vehicles.

"Taking into account Automated Driving or Intelligent Transportation Systems, one thing becomes clear: Connected, smart services and applications will drive future mobility," said Jeff Klei, President of Continental North America. "Continental has set itself the vision to provide trusted and reliable connectivity for the future of mobility."

For this reason, Continental's demonstration vehicle is equipped with secure and seamless network technology. It includes a so-called "super pipe," which is able to aggregate all available data channels, including the driver's and passengers' mobile phones to provide a faster and more reliable data transfer, managed by the vehicle router. This also allows the user or OEM to set the management priority for the bandwidth so that, for example, a child's video stream does not interrupt an important WebEx call.

The vehicle includes secure cloud-based threat protection, multi-layered firewalls, advanced connection management and seamless channel and source switching. This means downloads won't be interrupted when the vehicle needs to switch sources (for example, between LTE and Wi-Fi). Even if all of the connections drop completely while driving through a tunnel for example, the download won't restart at the beginning but at the point it dropped off. Since the router also manages the V2X communications channel (DSRC), it has the power to use one of the other redundant communication channels as a failsafe to always keep the vehicle connected.

"With our developments and our collaboration with Cisco, we strive to make connectivity to the digital world a secure, reliable and enjoyable experience and give answers for the connectivity challenge of moving vehicles," said Klei.

At the Expo, Klei will participate in "The Pros & Cons of Connected Autonomy" panel on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 3:50 p.m. in meeting room 403 A&B. The discussion will focus on the pros and cons of an Internet-tethered autonomous car and provide insight on technological advancements for tomorrow's roads.

The Connected Car Expo is an annual gathering, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Auto Show press and trade days (Nov. 18-20) that fosters relationship building in the connected car industry.