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The Top Five Trends For The Connected Car In 2016, TechCrunch

The Top Five Trends For The Connected Car In two thousand sixteen

Mahbubul Alam is the chief technology officer of Movimento.

Many years ago, car predictions focused on what near-future vehicles would look like. Would they be thicker or smaller and how rapid would they get from zero to sixty mph?

But today, as modern automobiles have evolved to moving machines bristling with sensors, software, processors and networks, future predictions are all about technology. So, what are the likely features for connected cars and their environment in two thousand sixteen and what are the major trends on the horizon ?

It’s All About Personalization

Cars will be much more personalized in 2016, thanks to algorithms and context-aware software.

Besides promoting lighter and safer driving, this trend will manifest in applications that will reaction queries and provide assistance in identifying the nearest parking place, the best place to have dinner and optimal routes..

This might sound similar to what our smartphones can do but it’s actually a big step beyond. Context awareness and learning algorithms will enable cars to differentiate inbetween a work day — when getting to meetings on time and finding the closest parking lot or a valet are paramount — versus private time, when we might be willing to make different choices. For example, find a cheaper parking spot that minimizes walking time or locate your closest dearest restaurant.

Another aspect of personalization expected in the industry is the car’s capability to act like their drivers. The driver’s persona and preferences – to be more specific their avatar – can be moved from car to car. Cars will understand and adapt to their driver’s behavior and preferences. This trend ties with the way millennials choose to opt for car sharing or leasing instead of buying a vehicle.

Car manufacturers will commence selling solutions that enable taking that avatar from car to car, just like we do with music playlists as we budge from iPhone to Mac to iPad.

The Birth Of Algorithm-based Everything

Intelligent technology is the driver of personalization, but this is just one aspect of how brainy software will stir into the vehicle world. Year two thousand sixteen will see the embark of algorithm-driven businesses in which companies will concentrate on suggesting plasticity and personalization in all aspects of their services.

In automotive insurance, as an example, machine learning algorithms will predict insurance premium based on an individual’s driving abilities and behavior as well as the driving conditions for the area.

We will also see an evolution in algorithm-based vehicle pricing such as Kelley’s Blue Books with better valuation of used car pricing based on a broader set of information describing the car. This will permit buyers and sellers to make better-informed decisions about their future vehicle choices.

And soon we will have the very first algorithm-based vehicle warranties that will help the buyers better assess the true value and relationship to driving patterns and driving style. Based on machine learning, these fresh warranties will prize drivers for their behavior on the road.

Predictive maintenance is another soon-to-occur capability from brainy software. Users will be suggested preventive measures they should undertake for maintaining their vehicle’s health. In fact, this is just one of the predictive services, which will flourish for connected cars. The software will suggest deeds required for continuing a car’s sleek functioning.

Ethernet Reaches The Car

Having a single network — the Ethernet — in the car will be a big disruptor. To begin with, it will be applied in areas like infotainment audio and movie, very impacting the content available in the car. But the real significance is down the road a bit. Next year, we expect every major OEM to be working on Ethernet architectures. This technology will begin displaying up in two thousand eighteen vehicles and will soon become the standard vehicle architecture.

Streaming movies in the car is joy to imagine but there are other significant reasons to stir to an Ethernet connection. Today, the Controller Area Network (CAN) is the main communications bus in the car and operates at just one megabit per 2nd. But there are many networks in a vehicle — for bluetooth, audio, backup camera — and all these networks weigh in at fifteen to twenty pounds of wiring, impacting the mileage per gallon of the vehicle.

Imagine the benefits of moving from one megabit to gigabits of network speed in the vehicle. Cars need speed to treat capabilities like automatic braking in case of hazards and other features, and looking further, this is a must-have technology for the semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles that with collect and process data from a large array of radars, cameras and other sensors.

The Car Will Retort

Next year, not only will your car receive software updates over the air (OTA) like your mobile phone in order to e.g. improve fuel efficiency through the latest and greatest releases, it will also be able to share information about user patterns and driving. This data will embark going back to the cloud and give car manufacturers and app makers a world of information and the drivers a superior driving and possessing practice.

This is not that futuristic when you consider that Tesla, through its beta software for autopilot, is already collecting data from real-life scripts of driving customers. General Motors is doing similar things with OnStar, collecting data on infotainment and other parts of the vehicle, to improve its products.

Collected data can help manufacturers expand vehicle “testing” by sending back valuable data on how car systems and software react under black ice, a curvy road, in a tornado or intense rain. All this can help improve future cars.

But this will display up in the infotainment systems, too. For example, if OEMs see that Pandora isn’t being used a lot, they might thrust down Spotify instead because they’ll get data on user preferences.

Safety Very first — Security Will Be Big

Universal security solutions won’t emerge in two thousand sixteen but there will be many ingenious solutions available in two thousand sixteen that will begin to target how we can protect every layer of the car. Alas, they won’t be integrated but will be available from each vendor separately. A duo of interesting areas are fresh autopilot systems, controlling the trajectory of a vehicle without driver involvement and in-car proximity sensors that enable avoidance of collisions and accidents.

One of the most significant security areas will be an effort to quantify the level of security in each manufacturers’ products through their own safety ratings. With security being a hot topic today, we’ll see vendors suggesting three-point security or five-star security or some kind of certification, perhaps from third parties, designed to boost consumer confidence.

Certainly, having two-way communications in vehicles creates nervousness about security hacks and data privacy, thus vendors will be upping their efforts in these areas. The objective of all the companies involved in vehicle security solutions will be to convert your car into a personalized, safe environment like your home or office.

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