In a significant stride towards enhancing road safety across Uttarakhand, the Chief Minister of the state, Pushkar Singh Dhami, inaugurated two new Automated Driving Test Tracks (ADTTs) in Haridwar and Rishikesh. These facilities are established by Maruti Suzuki India as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative.

The newly launched ADTTs are equipped with high-definition cameras and integrated IT systems, enabling them to conduct driving license evaluations with minimal human intervention. This ensures a more comprehensive, efficient and transparent testing process for aspiring drivers. All evaluations at the ADTTs strictly adhere to the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR).

These new tracks will facilitate driving license testing for both Light Motor Vehicles (LMV) and two-wheelers. Maruti Suzuki has been a key partner in this endeavour, having also operated an ADTT in Dehradun since 2019. The Dehradun facility previously received accolades from the Chief Minister for Excellence and Good Governance in 2019-2020.

Brijesh Kumar Sant (IAS), Secretary Transport, Uttarakhand Government, said, "We are committed to making Uttarakhand's roads safer, and Maruti Suzuki's ADTTs are an important enabler in this direction. Our association with Maruti Suzuki goes back to 2009, when the Institute of Driving and Traffic Research was established in Dehradun. With the comprehensive evaluation at ADTTs, we can ensure that only skilled drivers get a driving license."

Rahul Bharti, Senior Executive Officer, Corporate Affairs, Maruti Suzuki India, said, "Under the visionary leadership of Chief Minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, Dev Bhoomi Uttarakhand is rapidly progressing. One of the key growth drivers for the state is tourism. Efficient and skilled drivers are needed to boost tourism and contribute to safer roads. Our Automated Driving Test Tracks (ADTTs) can play a vital role to achieve this goal by ensuring that only skilled and competent drivers receive a license through a 100 percent computerised, transparent and efficient testing process."

"Every year, just before the onset of Char Dham yatra, we undertake a refresher training for commercial drivers in Uttarakhand. This prepares the drivers for hilly terrains on the yatra route. This training is one of the qualifiers for mandatory Green Card required for all commercial drivers during the yatra. This year, we plan to cover about 11,000 drivers in the refresher driving training at IDTRs," added Bharti.

The carmaker stated that the automated testing process at ADTTs have shown a tangible impact on driver preparedness. Initially, a decline in the pass percentage for driving license seekers is often observed, which then gradually increases as applicants arrive better prepared. For instance, at the Dehradun ADTT, the pass percentage initially dropped to 60 percent in FY 2019-20 but has since progressively improved to 69 percent, indicating that only truly skilled drivers are receiving licenses.

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Maruti Suzuki India, the country’s largest passenger vehicle manufacturer, has announced the second phase expansion of its Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) in Gurugram under its corporate social responsibility initiative, allocating approximately INR 750 million to the project.

The expansion will see the installation of 1,000 additional radar-integrated cameras across 70 junctions and nine road stretches covering 65 kilometres in the city. Combined with the initial phase, which deployed 400 cameras across 23 junctions, the completed network will encompass 1,400 cameras across 93 junctions and 13 road corridors.

Implemented in partnership with the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority and the Gurugram Police, the automated system detects traffic offences including speed limit violations, red-light jumping, helmetless riding, triple riding and wrong-side driving. The camera units record registration plate details and transmit data directly to the Integrated Command and Control Centre for enforcement processing.

Sibash Kabiraj, Commissioner of Police, Gurugram, said, "We appreciate Maruti Suzuki’s continued support in strengthening Gurugram’s traffic management infrastructure through its CSR initiative. The expansion of the Integrated Traffic Management System will further strengthen our ability to monitor traffic violations, enable timely enforcement, and encourage greater compliance with traffic regulations."

P C Meena, CEO of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority, said, "GMDA is committed to building a robust, technology-driven surveillance network to strengthen traffic management and road safety across Gurugram. The expansion of CCTV coverage in collaboration with Maruti Suzuki India Limited and Gurugram Police will enable more effective traffic monitoring, strengthen enforcement of traffic rules and promote greater road discipline. Connecting the CCTV network with GMDA’s Integrated Command and Control Centre will further enhance real-time surveillance, improve coordination among enforcement agencies and facilitate quicker action against traffic violations, contributing to safer roads for all commuters."

Rahul Bharti, Senior Executive Officer of Corporate Affairs, Maruti Suzuki India, said, "We are pleased to further strengthen our partnership with GMDA and the Gurugram Traffic Police in advancing road safety through technology-driven interventions. This advanced tracking system addresses issues like riding without helmets, triple riding, red-light violations, over-speeding, and wrong-side driving. These violations highlight a critical road-safety challenge, as human error continues to be the leading cause of road accidents in India. The findings reinforce the need for sustained, collaborative efforts to improve compliance with traffic regulations and foster safe road behaviour. Improving road safety requires a combination of responsible driving, robust driving license testing and effective traffic enforcement. We are committed to working alongside authorities in these areas to build a safer mobility ecosystem."

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Swedish automotive company Volvo Cars has expanded its technology partnership with NVIDIA to integrate the computing firm's Hyperion sensor and compute architecture into its next-generation vehicle platform.

The system combines Volvo's vehicle safety architecture with NVIDIA's hardware, Halos operating system and Alpamayo Stack driving software. The technology is designed to navigate highway environments, urban traffic and parking scenarios, laying the foundation for the gradual introduction of eyes-off and mind-off driving capabilities. The system will make its commercial debut in an upcoming production model as part of Volvo Cars' vehicle development roadmap.

Hakan Samuelsson, President and CEO, Volvo Cars, said, "Volvo has been synonymous with car safety for almost 100 years. By working with NVIDIA, we bring together two distinct strengths: industry-leading safety knowledge and world-class AI technology. That combination gives us a unique opportunity to create safer and more attractive cars for our customers."

Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO, NVIDIA, said, "Accelerated computing has transformed the car into an intelligent machine that can understand the world around it. Volvo has spent nearly a century protecting people on the road. Together, we’re combining Volvo’s extraordinary vehicle safety systems with NVIDIA Hyperion and Halos to build a new generation of cars that make driving safer and more effortless."

The agreement marks a continuation of the collaboration between the two companies, which established their initial development partnership in 2017. The deployment of NVIDIA's computing stack will support Volvo's transition toward software-defined electric vehicles across its global product lineup.

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French tier 1 supplier Valeo and open science research lab KE:SAI have launched a joint research collaboration to develop a generalist artificial intelligence (AI) driving system for autonomous vehicles. The partnership plans to publish models, code, weights and datasets as open-source resources.

The initiative brings together artificial intelligence teams from valeo.ai in Paris and the KE:SAI founding team in Tübingen, Germany. The collaboration focuses on training a unified AI model capable of operating across different vehicle platforms, sensor configurations and geographic environments. Initial development will utilise large-scale real-world driving data before integrating reinforcement learning within simulated environments to address rare driving scenarios.

KE:SAI was co-founded by research organisation Kyutai and the ELLIS Institute Tübingen. By making the underlying code, benchmarks and model weights accessible, the initiative aims to provide automakers, component suppliers and academic laboratories with a standardised reference system for autonomous driving research and development.

Marc Vrecko, CEO, Valeo Brain, said, "This open-science collaboration with KE:SAI marks a strategic milestone for Valeo and the broader European automotive ecosystem. By combining our deep industrial and technological expertise in autonomous driving with world-class open-source research, we are establishing a shared foundation to accelerate the development of physical AI and democratize next-generation self-driving technologies."

Andreas Geiger, CEO, KE:SAI, said, "For language models, open source compressed years of progress into months, yet frontier physical AI is still largely closed. Valeo shares our belief that open foundations create more innovation than any closed system ever could. Everything we develop will be open. Every step forward is a step forward for everyone."

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Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, in collaboration with industry partners, have published a study in Nature Communications demonstrating that reconfigurable battery pack architectures can extend electric vehicle battery operational life by more than 20 percent under specific conditions.

In conventional electric vehicle battery packs, cells are wired in a fixed series configuration, meaning the weakest cell dictates the overall capacity, performance and lifespan of the entire pack. The architecture evaluated by the Chalmers engineering team uses integrated electronic switches and a centralised battery management system to monitor individual cells or cell groups. When a cell experiences accelerated degradation or reduced capacity, the system bypasses the degraded unit while electric current continues to flow through the remaining functional cells.

Albert Skegro, a PhD student at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, said, "They must all move at the pace of the slowest person and stop when that person stops, regardless of how much energy the others have left. With the architecture we have modelled, the battery can instead bypass the cell that is causing problems and continue using the remaining cells."

Changfu Zou, Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chalmers, said, "Reconfiguration is not an on-or-off choice. It is a spectrum. Where a manufacturer chooses to position itself on that spectrum determines how much of the potential benefit can be realised."

In a representative modelling scenario featuring an 80 kWh battery pack driven 12,000 kilometres annually over an 18.8-year vehicle lifespan, the reconfigurable system deferred battery replacement by approximately 14 months. The researchers noted that the technology yields the highest performance gains in high-voltage vehicles, including 400-volt and 800-volt electric passenger cars and commercial trucks, where higher cell counts in series increase the statistical probability of individual cell variance.

A techno-economic analysis included in the study determined that implementing cell-level switching hardware increases initial pack production costs by approximately nine per cent based on prototype-scale volumes of 1,000 units. The researchers identified an economic break-even threshold at a 12 percent cost increase, noting that volume manufacturing would lower component costs and increase financial viability for fleet operators and private owners. While prototype applications such as Volvo Cars' SmartCell concept and experimental road vehicles exist, mass-production vehicles using reconfigurable battery packs are yet to enter the commercial market.

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