Till a crash did us apart: Mobileye and Tesla part ways

Israel-based technology company Mobileye - which makes software and components that help prevent collisions - and the California-based leading car maker Tesla have decided to end their collaboration on advancing features related to the automaker's Autopilot autonomous-driving device. Mobileye announced the end of the partnership on its second-quarter earnings calls on Tuesday morning.

Mobileye CTO, Chairman, and co-founder, Amnon Shashua, who was seen giving a lengthy technical presentation at CES in January on how Mobileye's use of deep neural networks enable Tesla's Autopilot functions, announced the partition.

Mobileye said that it will continue to provide technical support of its EyeQ3 processor - the current system-on-a-chip found in Autopilot-capable Model S and Model X electric vehicles - for the electric-vehicle maker. The company will also continue to support current vehicles, including software fixes for crash avoidance and auto-steering, but won't develop more Autopilot-related products.

Mobileye said the end of the partnership wouldn't have a material impact on company earnings.

"Nevertheless, in our view, moving toward more advanced autonomy is a paradigm shift both in terms of function complexity and the need to ensure an extremely high level of safety," the company wrote.

Though Tesla is yet to comment, analysts believe that the partition is a fallout over the respective responses to a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model S that occurred in Florida in May.

Noticeably, the announcement comes nine days after Tesla chief Elon Musk tweeted his thanks to both Mobileye and Bosch for their contributions to Autopilot's development. Musk wrote at the time that Tesla was on the verge of achieving "moderate and maybe big advances" to Autopilot, and reiterated his faith in the strategy of improving Autopilot through camera and radar advancements instead of lidar, a detection system that uses light from a laser.

Though it's a big loss for Mobileye, it's partnership with BMW and intel will probably make sure that the Mobileye's future is not difficult.

The company said, "Mobileye believes that achieving this objective requires partnerships that go beyond the typical OEM / supplier relationship, such as our recently announced collaboration with BMW and Intel. Mobileye will continue to pursue similar such relationships."