RE: Colin new linkedin post re Mitsu6 Jan 2025 10:38
mitsubishi electric mobility corp. ("memco") has announced a collaboration agreement with seeing machines covering #automotive #dms #oms and guardian (fleet) gen3. it is a huge deal, let's dive in. this is a collaboration agreement not a simple t1/t2 purchase agreement, which implies that from now memco will bid only seeing machines for auto rfqs. that suggests existing arrangements (with smart eye?) will be terminated, which could explain the "deep layoffs" announced by affectiva (a smart eye company) in december. the very serious issues with the dms in the mitsubishi triton have been discussed here already and need not be rehashed. mitsubishi listened and adapted.
seeing machines now has three global t1 partners, each with a slightly different regional oem bias: magna (n. america); valeo (europe); memco (japan). all are established in china too. adding a fourth t1 with an oem focus on korea might be next. advanced distraction algorithms and #humanfactors expertise appears to be the key competencies accessed by memco, underlining seeing machines' leadership in these areas, along with compliance for #ncap26 and #gsr.
it is assumed mitsubishi motors, nissan, and subaru will be the first auto oems targeted by memco, and we may see something this week. toyota is the big win, but has a well established dms partnership with aisin/denso; mazda's decision for dms is unknown but likely still in play.
the strategy appears to center on memco targeting denso for dms in both auto rfqs and commercial vehicles. denso offers aftermarket dms for trucks (using signals from xperi) mostly in japan. guardian gen3 is now to be marketed in the fleet aftermarket in n. america, europe and japan using the established memco distribution channel, instantly massively expanding customer reach. the gen3 box has been ****logated in after manufacture trucks sold in europe (wrightbus), showing compliance with #ddaw for gsr. thus the agreement immediately takes memco into both aftermarket and after manufacture dms supply for commercial vehicles. will fuso be the first customer win?
memco has a 19.90% stake in seeing machines as part of the agreement, now making it the largest investor. this number is significant and signals an intent for a long-term partnership between the two companies, rather than sets memco to buy seeing machines outright (see "buying a husk"). seeing machines is evidently pursuing close partnerships across auto and commercial vehicles, rather than competing with t1 partners by becoming a "software tier-1," thus blurring the lines between collaboration partner and competitor.
bottom line: memco selected a partner, and that partner was seeing machines.
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