The Future Of Connected Cars Starts With Emergency Vehicle Detection

If you own a late-model Stellantis vehicle, you might notice something odd. A warning may pop up on your center screen, your radio or nav covered by a single black box with two lines of text: “CAUTION” “Emergency Vehicle Approaching.” Fifteen seconds later, you start hearing sirens and seeing lights — there are emergency vehicles approaching. How did the car figure it out before you did?

The answer has nothing to do with light sensors or microphones. Instead, it relies on cloud-based software for tracking emergency vehicles. It’s called Hazard Enhanced Location Protocol, or HELP, and it alerts nearby vehicles when an ambulance, fire truck, or other emergency vehicle needs to get by. It’s an early step into the connected world of vehicle-to-everything communications, but where do we go from here?

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