Automotive IoT: The Next Step in Automobile Industry Transformation

By CIOReview | Monday, November 26, 2018

Automotive IoT market is a wide-open business model for experts to watch closely. However, tech executives are too afraid to step into this unknown territory. Safety is a critical factor in automotive IoT, and everyone in the chain of command is involved in it. Big companies are too afraid to take risks, and small start-up companies can take the lead in this scenario.

The companies have collected Petabytes of data over the past few years. The big question is who owns the data collected on cars and drivers. The other fact about data is that its privacy status is challenging because the risk cannot be calculated today. There is no solid legal blueprint for privacy and safety issues related to self-driving cars, fleet tracking, usage-based insurance, and other areas. Therefore, small companies need to take the lead instead of large corporations moving slowly in the direction.

As the automotive industry is on the brink of revolution, the IoT market has seen steady growth since 2014. According to Gartner, a market research firm, the revenue of IoT product and service suppliers will be a whopping $300 billion in 2020. Additionally, the entire IoT market will grow up to $7.1 trillion in 2020. IoT will cause a transformation in the automobile industry and create a power struggle between car manufacturers and software developers. Even though the automotive industry is carmakers turf, carmakers are struggling to navigate as it is new terrain for them. This new terrain is the ground zero for carmakers who want to capture value and where software providers are gaining ground gradually.

IoT has already gained momentum in a lot of automotive sectors. There are a lot of features available in autonomous cars such as in-vehicle infotainment system. Most vehicle infotainment takes the tethered or integrated form which requires internet connectivity similar to a smartphone. In future, the infotainment systems will have connectivity features embedded in them.

Sensors present in them will enable the user with predictive maintenance. External sensors in the vehicle in the form of rear-view cameras and proximity sensors enhance driver as well as pedestrian safety. The meshed network of cars on the road helps in blind spot detection and can predict and avoid collisions far in advance.

IoT allows manufacturers to get access to real-time data. Predictive maintenance receives a boost and allows faster response times and enables manufacturers to be accountable and proactive in case of crisis scenarios.