New technologies turned automobiles into supercomputers. Over the last years, Delphi has shed its old operations, and begun acquiring and investing in high-tech businesses. Cars produced today include dozens of computer chips. Future vehicles will have all that, said Kevin P. Clark, Delphi’s chief executive.

P. Clark hopes to be the supplier of networking components in order to link all complex systems and enable them to work together. Delphi is hoping to become the Cisco of the self-driving car. Cisco is the tech giant that provides routers and switches that form the backbone of the internet.

Mike Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner who tracks the development of connected and self-driving cars, said Delphi is attempting the most extensive transformation.

Delphi hopes to create a new business that can gather vast amounts of data from vehicles; the company then envisions selling insights drawn from the data trove to automakers, insurance companies and possibly even advertisers. It’s a business model unlike anything the auto industry has ever seen. It’s similar to what Google does by targeting ads to users based on terms they have searched.

Mr. Clark said he was convinced such data services will evolve into a multibillion-dollar industry, though it may be years before this vision is confirmed.

The boldness of Delphi’s plan underscores how dramatic technological changes are loosening the dominant role traditional carmakers have in the auto industry, while opening opportunities for new players.

Danny Shapiro, a senior executive at Nvidia, a chip maker that provides of the powerful processors used by Tesla, Audi and many others, said he would not be surprised to see some reordering of the auto industry in the next five to 10 years. Tesla, thanks to its rising stock, recently passed both Ford and G.M. in terms of market value.

Mr. Clark, hopes his company will be one of the rising stars. Delphi has also partnered with Intel and Mobileye, an Israeli maker of camera systems that can spot obstacles and trigger braking. Intel has since agreed to acquire Mobileye in a 15.3 billion dollars deal set to close later this year.

Delphi went further, acquiring a start-up with technology for wirelessly transferring data and software to and from vehicles, and investing 15 million dollars in another Israeli company.

The Delphi chief executive announced a final break with the traditional automotive industry. Delphi’s powertrain business, which makes fuel injectors and diesel technology, will be spun off as a separate company by the first quarter of next year.

Original Source: nytimes.com
 

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