Panasonic is one of only a few auto suppliers that offers full end-to-end software and hardware development capabilities to automakers. When we became involved SYNC 3, we knew it would have unique challenges, and be on a fast track to market. Ford leaders made decisions early that would ensure we hit the challenging 18-month timeline. 

Fundamentally, Ford recognized Panasonic’s historic success creating infotainment systems that rank high with consumers, and shared the idea that technology–even wow technology–should fade into the background, behind the experience it supports. Ford set up the project almost like an internal initiative with Panasonic software developers and engineers collaborating with their counterparts at the OEM. That meant if changes had to happen, they could happen fast.

Free-flowing roads depend on a free flow of information. Data capture has been a one-way street, handled by road infrastructure. With advancements in connected vehicles, that is changing. 

V2X, or vehicle-to-everything, is a technology that allows vehicles to communicate with other vehicles and the roadway infrastructure around them. 

In Colorado, vehicle and road connectivity is at the center of efforts to improve traveler safety and reduce traffic jams. Panasonic has created a connected V2X vehicle ecosystem that integrates travel data, infrastructure data, and outside data sources and communicates that information to vehicles and external systems. 

The system comes out of a collaboration between Panasonic and the Colorado Dept. of Transportation to create the first commercial-grade, U.S. connected vehicle platform in which real-time data will be shared across vehicles, infrastructure, and people with a goal to improve safety, lower fuel consumption and reduce congestion.