Porsche invests in Israeli start-up Tactile Mobility

Porsche is intensifying its collaboration with Israeli technology company Tactile Mobility with a minority investment.

The company is one of the leaders in the field of "tactile data" and is based in Haifa. Tactile Mobility plans to use the funds primarily to strengthen its development as well as sales activities and promote the collaboration with other automotive manufacturers, mobility service providers as well as municipalities and road authorities in the US, Europe and Asia.

So-called tactile data simulates a sense of touch. In this process, an algorithm processes data that is provided by different physical sensors which are already available.

«Tactile Mobility’s method helps us collect additional information about the condition of vehicles and roads that goes beyond the information that can be obtained with conventional sensor systems» explains Michael Steiner, Member of the Executive Board for Research and Development at Porsche.

An integration into series production cars is planned for the beginning of the next decade. Amongst other use cases, tactile data can further improve the assessment of the friction coefficient between tyres and the road surface while a vehicle is moving.

Additional potential for the use of the technology also lies in applications for the predictive servicing and optimisation of the battery management.

In a next development stage, Tactile Mobility’s software can provide data on the vehicle’s condition itself, for example engine and brake efficiency as well as fuel consumption. Consequently, it is possible to draw conclusions on different vehicle components’ state of wear.