Telematics Detroit – Connected Car in the Eyes of Key Industry Players
I visited the Telematics Detroit show in Detroit in June 2012 and captured the following conference notes.
The Statistics
- More than 50% of Consumers want: wireless connectivity in the car; advanced navigation services; crash notification services
- In-vehicle internet access: 30% favor mobile device; 21% want embedded access (w/ separate data plan)
- Favored applications: navigation (regular map updates); real-time weather services; real-time parking information; less frequently requested: social media apps (Facebook and Twitter); 35% of users are interested in Internet radio (not satellite radio).
- The average US commute is 47 minutes (single driver)
- Americans drive 1.5 trillion miles per year; 250 hrs per day
OEMs – Perspectives, Opportunities & Challenges
- OEMs will select apps by quality and expect to develop custom apps (analyst); data privacy concerns are a major challenge
- Key question: does the OEM curate apps or will the customer ultimately want to curate their own apps? How would this affect quality assurance, liability, and brand protection?
- Usage-based vehicle insurance is demanded by a growing segment of consumers
- “The car will become the preferred communications platform by 2014.”
- BMW, Mercedes, and Audi are leading edge in the connected car context
- Mercedes is launching ‘mbrace2’ – 2.0 version of its in-car solution (contains access, data, apps). The FB app is the first one built outside of FB. Also Yelp. Safety and simplicity are key. Diagnostics proactively identify problems. Powered by Hughes Telematics
- Verizon acquires Hughes Telematics
- Major misalignment - telematics features evolve faster than cars
- “Every POI is also an ad” (why pay for map content?)
- In telematics, roles are being revolutionized
- BMW: connected svcs; expect 95% adoption. Next step: predictive apps: driver customization.
- OEMs: the mobile device should not reach into the car system. OEMs expect to curate content; is that realistic? Who curates: OEM, driver, public?
- V2V and V2I are pre-requisites to autonomous driving
- Need adaptive governance model: to cover OEM, driver, public
- Ford working with Facebook on integration; voice-activated (Hackathon -> see Youtube video)
