Commentary
Connected Cars Go To Rental Fleets, Off-Road And Connect To Home
- by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, July 13, 2016
Even if someone doesn’t purchase a smart
or connected car, they are getting more likely to come in contact with one.
While manufacturers continue to add more Internet-connected features to their new and future vehicles, other entities are tapping into connectivity for their own fleets.
The latest is a move by Avis, which just tuned its mobile app to unlock car doors, flash the car headlights in a lot and at rental, change cars with a swipe on a smartphone.
Cars and smartphones are increasingly being tied together.
Even Intel wants to get inside that action.
Since a substantial amount of information, much of it in real time, is required for cars to become part of the Internet of Things, Intel sees the car as essentially the next smartphone, from an opportunity standpoint.
Having missed much of the mobile revolution, Intel’s CEO in a recent speech said the company is focusing on connected cars, since that is where mobile is heading.
Intel is not the only company looking at connecting cars to other things.
BMW has created links from its cars to the owner’s house so the driver can monitor and manage systems like air conditioning remotely.
And Volkswagen has teamed with smartphone maker LG to provide information both in the car or at home, the idea being that the consumers is always connected to all they own.
Car makers also are working on the longer term autonomous vehicle (AKA the self-driving car), to varying degrees.
The latest move is from Jaguar, which is planning an all-terrain, off-road Jaguar Land Rover that has autonomous driving capabilities.
The reality is that self-driving cars hitting the roads in masses are quite a distance away, for a number of reasons, some quite obvious.
In the short-term future, marketers realistically will be facing consumers who tap into information more continually and from more places, such as their cars.
Rather than being around the corner, marketing to passengers who sit in cars that drive themselves is a bit down the road.
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Samsung, UnderArmour, Microsoft and Philips Lighting presenting at the MediaPost IoT Marketing Forum Aug. 3 in New York. Check it out here.
Chuck Martin is Editor of the AI & IoT Daily at MediaPost and writes the daily Connected Thinking column. He is a NY Times Business bestselling author and his latest book is “Digital Transformation 3.0” (The New Business-to-Consumer Connections of The Internet of Things.) He is CEO of Net Future Institute and a frequent keynote speaker internationally. Follow him on Twitter @chuckmartin and contact him at Chuck@MediaPost.com.
People just don't get it. For the sake of convenience (laziness), you are opening the world to everything about you by scanning your life away. So, seriosly, is it really that much harder to unlock a car door with a key fob? and when you do....................the lights flash automatically.
WOW, using a phone is really ..............progress.
I agree with Paula, but what We have is a generation coming behind us who cannot function without their phone touching them. These folks can't do anything that requires basic mechanical function, which includes making change without looking at a computer. It's a generation of ignorant people because they can google anything, which takes away situation thinking. The results, they can't be bothered with driving, because it interfers with posting your lunch plate on Facebook.
BTW, GPS Maps suck. I need to see the "Big picture" of a map to see and understand my bearings because I might want to travel this way again, rather than listening to an annoying phone voice who usually takes you the wrong way. Give me a paper map ANY DAY!!
Look out rental car compnaies, watch who you get into bed with, The Big three are looking at "Sharing cars" rather than purchase, which would put them out of bidness. But then the employees will have more face time on their phone!!
Thanks for your comments, Mark. These advances are what the industry is doing, not necessarily what consumers/drivers are adopting. And for maps, a large paper version may provide a better overall view in context, but Google Maps will show the best way to get somewhere based on the traffic at the moment.