Southfield-based global automotive seating and electrical systems supplier Lear Corp. today announced it has been selected by the Wyoming Department of Transportation as its exclusive partner to supply advanced vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure Road Side Units and On-Board Units.
With its 2015 acquisition of Arada Systems, Lear now offers complete in-house capabilities for vehicle electrical systems required to connected vehicles to other vehicles and to roadside infrastructure, including hardware, software, and cybersecurity. Lear has deployed road-side equipment in more than 20 locations across eight states and in five countries.
Wyoming is one of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s pilot sites for connected vehicles, with a focus on trucking and highway driving in adverse weather conditions. In addition to supplying all related safety applications to this pilot program, Lear’s E-Systems will supply its so-called Locomate Roadstar product with features such as Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC), high-precision GPS, Wi-Fi, security and more.
Designed to withstand harsh environments, the Locomate Roadstar is the next generation in Lear’s automotive connectivity product portfolio.
“Lear is pleased to showcase our unique expertise with both in-vehicle and roadside infrastructure capabilities as well as our commitment to work closely with states such as Wyoming in order to provide vehicle connectivity solutions,” says Frank Orsini, Lear senior vice president and president of the E-Systems business segment. “Our E-Systems team is focused on delivering innovations for automotive connectivity platforms, and our industry-leading vehicle connectivity product offering is the result of our global engineering talent bringing leading products to market.”
Founded in Detroit in 1917, Lear serves every major automaker in the world and their products can be found on nearly 400 vehicle nameplates. The company currently employs 150,000 in 37 countries.
