Toyota and Volvo lend support to artificial intelligence driven innovation

Even with the drive among automakers and high-tech peripheral companies to join forces and churn out green and autonomous vehicles, one element that’s always a concern is safety. And while driverless vehicles might claim that removing the human error element will make roads safer, there’s always that possibility that an anomaly or design flaw might also be a contributor to an accident.

Hoping to take that element out of the equation is Israel-based UVeye, which has been working for years on developing technology for automatic and external vehicle inspections, just received a financial nod of approval from Toyota, Volvo and Fortune 500 insurance holding company the W.R. Berkley Corporation. On Tuesday, UVEye announced that the three supporters collectively put in additional funding worth $31 million. The investment drive, which started in 2017, has brought in a total of $35 million for the venture.

“This latest investment including leading automotive strategic partners is an important signal that we believe paves the way for UVeye to become the standard of automotive inspection and safety,” said Amir Hever, CEO of UVeye. “We are delighted to have world-class companies in their respective sectors endorse our game-changing auto-scanning solution.”

Thanks to its use of artificial intelligence UVeye’s automatic vehicle inspection technology can inspect an entire vehicle inside and out from bumper to bumper without having to go right into the innards of a truck or car. The savings could be huge, since such an inspection won’t require a great deal of mechanic crew labor to go through an entire vehicle piece by piece, much less open the hood.

It’s all made possible via a drive-through system in which the innovation scans the entire vehicle for design flaws, worn parts, anomalies and other causes of compromised performance or potential hazardous. UVeye claims that the whole process can be done in seconds and is already in use in some production plants where the inspection phase has become part of the assembly line workflow. The company also says it’s already conducted millions of scans with the innovation at car centers in dozens of countries, adding that the system’s accuracy in detecting anomalies have exceeded “client thresholds” in tests conducted so far.

Contingent with the investment is the intent of both Volvo and Toyota to adopt the inspection system in their factories and dealerships worldwide. Toyota also plans to add the innovation at used-car locations or anywhere Toyota vehicles are being serviced in Japan.

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