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Automotive Grade Linux will be the backbone of your connected car

Creating a backend for a secure, reliable, and expandable infotainment system is costly and time consuming. The Linux Foundation, a non-profit organization, has set out to promote and advance the Linux operating system in commercial products. Automotive Grade Linux, or AGL, is a group within the Foundation that seeks to apply a Linux backend to a number of automotive applications in a variety of vehicles from various suppliers and manufacturers. AGL's goal is to create a common, unifying framework that allows developers and manufacturers to easily implement applications across platforms. Currently, the focus is on infotainment systems, but AGL has plans for instrument clusters, heads-up displays, and eventually active safety software. At CES, a display from Panasonic showed a completely digital and customizable dashboard that allows information and apps to be moved from the gauge cluster to the infotainment screen and back, all through the use of gesture and touch controls. Although the organization has been around for five years, it's really only been in the past three that the group has been working hand in hand with automakers and suppliers. The first two OEMs to participate, Toyota and Jaguar Land Rover, have since been joined by Mazda, Suzuki, Ford, and, as of this week, Daimler. The latter is important as until now most of AGL's partner's have been based in Japan or the US. Other partners include suppliers Denso, Renesas, Continental, Qualcomm, and Intel. AGL want's to supply roughly 80 percent of the backend, allowing partners to then finish and refine the Linux system for each individual application. Think of how the Android operating system is refined and customized for individual smartphones from Samsung, LG, and Motorola. While the final product looks different, developers can have an application that will work across all AGL systems. Because it is open source, anyone can use and develop for AGL. You can even go onto the group's website and download a copy right now. There is also a software development kit available that helps facilitate app creation on the platform. Vehicle development cycles take roughly five years, so there currently are no cars that run an AGL backbone available for consumers. AGL Executive Director Dan Cauchy says products should be hitting the market later this year, with even more coming in 2018. Right now, the industry is relatively fragmented when it comes to infotainment and related systems.

Aston CEO claims Cygnet cancelled because Toyota is dropping iQ in 2014

While slow sales and a $50,000 price tag may have been contributing factors to the Aston Martin Cygnet being cancelled last month, Aston Martin CEO Ulrich Bez is pointing the finger at Toyota for the demise of this luxurious little city car. In a discussion with Autocar, Bez is quoted as saying that the ultimate reason the Cygnet was cut is because Toyota plans on dropping the iQ (on which the Cygnet is based) in 2014 - a claim denied by the Japanese automaker.
Interestingly, the article also cites another publication reporting that a Toyota importer in the Netherlands heard the same news as Bez, and it has already stopped importing the cars. If the European Toyota iQ is cancelled, that would likely spell the end of the slow-selling Scion iQ in the US, which has sold just 3,365 units through September (a drop of 51 percent year over year).
Regardless of why production of the Cygnet ended, Bez also says that a lack of support from Toyota on the project prevented it from being offered in the US or receiving a supercharged engine, which are two factors that likely would have made the car appealing to more buyers.

Toyota finds profit in Europe thanks to hybrid sales

In the land of diesel, Toyota appears to be making money its own way and thereby making more of it. The Japanese automaker is taking on Europe's diesel-centric ways by substantially boosting sales of hybrids on the continent. That, along with cost cutting measures, has increased the company's European profitability, Automotive News says, citing recent remarks by Toyota's European operations chief Didier Leroy. Toyota, which lost money in Europe between 2008 and 2011, started turning things around two years ago by cutting labor at places like UK factories while consolidating production of models such as the Auris and Yaris hybrid vehicles. During the most recently completed financial year, Toyota Europe reported earnings that were up 75 percent from the year before, despite revenue being up just five percent. The company also aims to sell at least 1 million vehicles in Europe by next year and is boosting sales in countries like Russia. Late last year, Didier told Bloomberg News that Toyota's European market share was rising about one percentage point a year, while production at Toyota's factories in countries like France, Turkey and the UK were running at full capacity. Toyota estimated at the time that hybrids accounted for about a fifth of Toyota's European sales.