The car of tomorrow will not run on gas but on data. Mobility and data-driven services are predicted to propel a 30% growth or $1.5 trillion increase in automotive revenue. By 2025, 125 million connected cars will be transmitting 25 GB, the equivalent of 10 HD movies, to the cloud, every hour. This wealth of data and insights is transforming the automotive industry. Smart mobility has propelled the merger between arch competitors BMW and Daimler and the arrival of tech giants such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in the automotive space.
Technologies such as smart OTA services, AI-driven voice assistants, AR/VR based advanced driver assistance systems and vehicle analytics dashboards that can power innovative business models are already here. As you drive to your team's baseball game, embedded solutions provide traffic and weather alerts, turn-by-turn directions, blind-spot and collision warnings and alert you to street signs. Your personal assistant plays your favorite songs, reads your messages and reminds you that your car is due for a 1000 mile check-up. Along the way, the latest security patches are unobtrusively updated over-the-air (OTA). Finally, a parking app guarantees you a spot, transforming parking from a dreaded inevitability to a stress-free one.
The business models based on automotive insights can stretch beyond convenience, entertainment, and safety. Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology allows your car to communicate with the road's infrastructure including the signals, other cars, neighboring devices and the driver's smart appliances. The data can be utilized by traffic departments, city planners and insurance companies. Insights can also be monetized to create valuable revenue models and targeted advertising by retailers and infotainment providers.
“The connected car holds a treasury of insights that can be applied not only to revolutionize the ride but also to make our roads and cities safe and pleasantly navigable."
As OEMs explore the business potential in the automotive data value chain, they also need to understand the challenges that exist. The most notable among them is complying with the nuances of data ownership and privacy while ensuring end-to-end cybersecurity. To actualize data-driven solutions, OEMs need to work with each other, assemble cross-functional teams and partner with experienced vendors. The potential of automotive insights to pioneer successful business models is too immense to be ignored—choose either to be disrupted or to be transformed by it.
