Toyota selected IBM to design and build a new application development platform for in-car services as part of its T-Connect telematics service.
The two companies will work together on on-board devices and applications for the Toyota Open Vehicle Architecture, with the aim of developing an ecosystem of mobile app developers and content providers for T-Connect. IBM’s offerings in this arena include its IBM Lotus Expeditor for Automotive, which the company describes as middleware that creates composite applications in an open platform environment.
IBM and Toyota said that a software development kit will be available for makers of on-board device applications, which is designed to enable those devices to work on a single app platform and make for a smooth transition from a test environment to debugging on the devices.
The market for connected vehicles is expected to get a large boost from the interest in the “Internet of Things.”
Dominique Bonte, VP and practice director for ABI Research, said recently that for the automotive industry, “the emergence of the IoT constitutes a disruptive and transformative environment characterized by value chain and business model upheaval and a ‘collaborate or die’ ecosystem friction reality prompting it to redefine and reinvent itself in order to capitalize on the huge opportunities in the new IoT economy.”
“The absorption of the automotive industry in the wider IoT is driven by new connected car use cases such as [electric vehicles] as a mobile grid and vehicles used as delivery locations. As this IoT revolution unfolds, automotive innovation and value creation will be shifting to the boundaries with other verticals such as home automation, smart grids, smart cities, healthcare and retail,” said Bonte.
ABI noted that high-profile examples of IoT for connected cars include Volvo’s Roam Delivery service; the partnership between Mercedes-Benz and Nest (Google) for remote control of home thermostats; the Toyota-Panasonic collaboration announced earlier this month for cloud-based linking of cars and home appliances; and Nissan’s Nismo smart watch unveiled last fall, which gathers telemetry information from the Nissan vehicle along with the physical condition of the driver, such as heart rate.
Toyota and IBM cited a GSMA report, conducted by research firm SBD, which predicts that the global connected vehicle market will be worth almost $53 billion in 2018, compared to $17 billion in 2012.
“As the industry continues to move toward bringing fully connected vehicles to market, new requirements for leveraging innovations in technologies like mobile continue to emerge,” said Dirk Wollschläger, GM of Global Automotive Industry for IBM. “The connected vehicle transformation will require collaboration across disciplines.”
