In Germany we have a significant growth in shared cars. But it looks like this is a more global effect according to the article “Future of Personal Mobility” recently published on Forbes.com: Right now I consider using one of these offers by myself. Therefore I cannot do a fixed installation of any of the gadgets I’m used to.
So for all the people like me:
If you are using a car you don’t own there needs to be a good solution for multimedia.
In the future we might have to live with whatever a standard configuration will be.
When I saw the “Intelligent Systems for a more connected world” graphic for the first time, I was happy to learn that I’m not alone with the many connected devices I use.
Today I might not reach 7, at least not constantly, but it’s close to 7. Since I’m a promoter of M2M / IoT I’m already using a cloud based solution for most of my data. I have “my” music available on my mobile phone, on my computer and some even on my tablet. So this should well co-exist with a shared car.
But it’s really a pity, when using one of these shared cars today. If there is a built-in entertainment system at all then it will be proprietary. It will not be compatible to any cloud I use and know. If they offer apps at all, they are special to that car maker. The navigation system in the car will have outdated and worse maps than the one on my mobile. Many features I’m used to like warnings on speed controls will not be available due to German regulations. So in reality I pay for a two grand USD infotainment system and get the features of an amplifier with a Bluetooth interface. If you are really lucky you can at least use the radio while BT is active. Today I can only choose in my car to either listen to the messages of the navigation software or to use the radio playing music. To make it even worse if I want update my car’s maps 300 USD are gone. That’s the price of a medium cost smartphone together with a navigation application plus worldwide maps.
This doesn’t sound very customer oriented, right?
Since I attend many IoT events and listen to the plans of car makers: They are still promoting these proprietary systems for incredible cost. There are vendors for Android based IVI, but not available by default from any car manufacturer I know so far. I know that Apple and Google are pushing a kind of car interface and I hope the big vendors will go for this.
Am I the only one waiting for this?
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