This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ second Autonomous and Electric Vehicles Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: From electric to autonomous: X-by-wire technology as an accelerator.
DETAILS: Ree Automotive is an Israeli company autonomous offering is a “corner technology,” in which the four corners of the chassis are commanded by computer technology and are not connected via a drive train. Its chassis are flat and modular and can be adopted for a wide range of uses.
INTERVIEWER AND SPEAKER: Sam Abuelsamid, the interviewer, is the principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights. Daniel Barel is the co-founder and CEO of Ree Automotive.
BIO: Barrel describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. He has founded several startups in everything from medical devices to cybersecurity. He has been the CEO of Ree since 2013.
KEY QUOTES FROM BAREL:
“We started from a clean slate of business. We had no legacy business so we could build from the ground up. We looked at how you can make it modular so that it can change its size and shape.”
“What if there were no linkages, no connections?”
“Putting everything in the corner and controlling it by wire, it isn’t all that complicated. It’s a remote control car and it can work.”
Speaking of safety: “How do you ensure that the signal you send to the motor goes through? This is where the majority of our efforts have been aimed at. We have to build multiple redundancies in these corners.”
