TU Automotive thinks so. This week I spoke with Gareth Ragg, strategic director for TU Automotive on the topic of connected cars. He said not only is this the year of the connected car, but the year that the mobility discussion evolves beyond the car. “Connectivity beyond the car” so to say.
We discussed the topic of smart mobility and the three main trends being seen in the market. The first is pure data connectivity. Thinking about that in the context of the connected car, it pertains not only to personal and infotainment data, but diagnostic data from the car, ensuring that pertinent data can be accessed securely and provide an acceptable customer experience. Second is the ability to take mobility beyond the car. The car is really just one way for an end-user to have a mobile experience: As you move about in your life – home, office, shopping, meeting friends, etc. – the expectation for a similar and (some day not too far away) seamless experience. Last is the autonomous vehicle, an area with a great deal of hype, which will continue going forward as the industry takes small strides toward achieving that goal. While fully autonomous vehicles are still some time away, this year we will continue to see advances.
Another area with a great deal of industry hype is big data. TU Automotive believes 2015 will be the year we move past the hype on this topic. OEMs want to expand and solidify their driver relationships. Building stronger ties and reasons for interaction will only come with a better level of driver insight in order to offer more personalized services. Big data is the path to being able to do this. The concept of sharing data to receive more personalized services is something that provides differing levels of challenges based on the target market. Millennials are quite comfortable with the concept of sharing personal data in order to receive services more tailored to their interests and expectations as opposed to older drivers who are more conservative about sharing personal information. OEMs will need to do a better job at educating this market on the value of sharing some personal data and the outcomes that result from doing so. More personalized services, easing the car buying/maintaining experience and reducing costs, for example. But in general, the data privacy concerns around the connected car will not be resolved in 2015.
All OEMs have some level of connected car functionality in place, but one of the main questions is how to differentiate themselves. In 2015 we should start to see more efforts to do just that. As the OEMs compete to determine which will be the one to master the connected car, some key areas for potential disruption this year include:
- Migrating the connected car experience more toward that of a smartphone experience for the end-user. Easy to navigate, visually appealing, integrated and it works without a technical degree.
- The Google/Apple disruption will heat up. As these players gear up to take more control of the connected cars, OEMs want them to have less control. Adding Google and Apple directly to the headunit minimizes the options for differentiation by the OEM. Partner yes, integrate – maybe not.
- Car sharing models – as more young and urban drivers move away from car ownership toward car sharing the concept of mobility also evolves. Not only from how you book, access and pay for the car share; but the desire for a consistent experience with your personalized content and functionality comes into play.
A couple of last topics to mention that are expected to be hot this year: Electric vehicles balancing the positive environmental impact vs. the declining oil prices making them potentially less attractive to drivers more comfortable with a traditional gas-fueled automobile. And integration of the car to the home and to the city – another concept that has been discussed for years, but expect to see “action” resulting in real steps toward the connected lifestyle this year .
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Claudia Bacco, Managing Director – EMEA for RCR Wireless News, has spent her entire career in telecom, IT and security. Having experience as an operator, software and hardware vendor and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless News.
