Mumbai, Dec 21 (FN Agency) EKA, an electric vehicles & technology company and a subsidiary of Pinnacle Industries Limited said that company has has deployed India’s first Level 2 ADAS enabled electric bus along with NuPort Robotics, a Canadian autonomous trucking company. The company says that the deployment of the new battery-powered bus allows NuPort to include progressive Level 2 autonomy and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on buses on the Indian roads. It further adds that this is a huge feat considering EKA is the first Indian company to have brought such technology buses in the country. Eka said that it has announced partnership with NuPort earlier this year, it further stresses that this partnership strengthens its vision to transform India’s public transportation. “We are proud to be the first movers in bringing India’s smartest electric bus.
We look forward to continuing our commitment toward creating a new community in global CV electric mobility equipped with powerful technology for mass adoption,” said Sudhir Mehta, Chairman, EKA & Pinnacle Industries Limited. The new electric bus gets Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) features such as Forward Collision Assistance (FCA), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), Left Right indicator views (LRV), Reverse Parking View (RPV), Emergency Brake Assist (EBA), Post-Incident Analysis (PIDA) and others. Needless to add, these features make the new electric buses under EKA and NuPort’s partnership one of the kind and most advanced to be seen on the Indian roads. Speaking on the partnership, Raghavender Sahdev, CEO, NuPort Robotics, mentioned, “Today with the support of EKA Mobility, we have achieved robust and safe deployment of Level 2 autonomy features for commercial electric buses for Indian roads. Over the next few years, we will deploy our technology across India, with EKA being our first Indian customer.
Together with this integration and implementation, EKA Mobility and NuPort Robotics have the potential to transform commercial electric mobility with their integrated transportation ecosystem” With this deployment, NuPort has solved the detection of complex traffic conditions and is able to detect and predict the speeds of Indian traffic with high accuracy. Conditions such as bumper-to-bumper traffic which is frequent on most Indian roads are seamlessly detected by NuPort’s in-house proprietary AI technology. This technology allows for safer and more comfortable driving as well as traveling experience. EKA and NuPort will release a working demonstration of its ADAS functionality shortly. The technology will reduce accident rates involving public transportation vehicles on Indian roads significantly in the coming years. The bus driver will be alerted in the event of an impending collision with a nearby vehicle, allowing the driver to avoid potentially dangerous situations. Over the next few years, the technology will be deployed on 5,000 EKA Mobility’s electric buses which will operate on different Indian state roads. Through this strategic technical milestone, NuPort will provide a seamless driving experience to bus drivers with its AI-enabled autonomous solutions on EKA’s electric vehicle platform. NuPort being an expert in offering artificial intelligence technology and EKA having expertise in the manufacturing of electric vehicles will work together towards the commercialization of the next generation of AI-enabled electric buses in India.