Gadgetory

oh right about now we're all getting pretty familiar with the idea of a connected car you may already have one but there's a brewing business model out there that is actually a bigger change than the sheer connectivity itself let's take a look most notably it would be a car connected to the cloud via a built-in cellular data radio in the car or through an obd2 port add-on device that has that cellular data ability it can also mean having a phone paired that can create a data link but at that point it does depend what apps you are running to meet the definition of connected car I don't think something like streaming Pandora really counts and I personally do not include a mobile hotspot in the car in the definition of connected car that's just a hotspot and that formula is rolling up to some big numbers now but huge numbers later with a lot of cars times a lot of revenue and a very high growth rate even though its niche now but here's the road map whether it's US or worldwide revenue you look at both are in the billions now with a very strong annual growth rate for the next few years even though the number of cars on the road is not even 10 percent in the US and not even half that worldwide so that's where the business is going but what is the business as you're going to feel it and pay for it first of all we start with the basic building block and that is that factory built in cellular data radio let's say that adds a few hundred dollars to the MSRP of the car now looking forward they're gonna have 20 million cars worldwide with these radios built in by 2020 or if you have an older car but it's 96 or later you can often add an under dash dongle to something called the obd2 port let's look at Verizon for example they've got one called hum they charge you $30 for the device $20 activation fee nothing lives under the dash giving you a subset but a pretty good one of what a full connected car condition now once you've got the hardware you had a service plan to keep the pipeline going between the car and the cloud General Motors has millions of cars on the road with OnStar connected services and that package about three hundred and fifty dollars a year to subscribe outies connected car service package cost two hundred dollars for six months or 750 for 30 months and that Verizon device we just talked about that's $10 a month with a two-year hitch now we've got the pipeline set up and we got it running we got to fill it with services the ones you know best have been out there for a while on services like OnStar things like crash notification locate your vehicle remotely start it adjust the climate even stop the thing when it's been stolen but newer services that are more commercial more retail they can run from the trivial locating a doughnut on your route to the much more substantial doing deep constant analysis of your driving for example to qualify you for a substantial insurance discount the more futuristic examples look like this connecting your car to your home so they can control one another usage based insurance early days now but pay for only as much auto insurance as the miles you drive warrant finding a parking space right on your dashboard and paying for it through a service as well relevant food and service prompts on your dash that are all about the route you're taking see donuts above and having tolls and parking fees automatically paid just by driving out or driving through one of those locations now if you're like me I know what you're thinking I can do this already with some apps on my phone a toll transponder and a free dongle my insurance company will send me absolutely true it's a little more of a hodgepodge that way but the next and the final big wave for automakers is to get into what they call mobility services every car maker has this on their corporate lips Mercedes move L lets you seamlessly plan a trip that involves not just one of their cars but also transit ride sharing and car sharing like their car to go service Ford has Ford pass it rolls up a whole slew of connected services like parking location and payment merchant discounts and offers for where you're going BMW's eye services they do something similar but with a strong emphasis on finding electric car charging locations and paying for it seamlessly and the final frontier for connected cars will be when they touch autonomous cars to talk to each other as well as to talk to the cloud to do the logistics and driving tasks better now this is going to be in a little different technical area it's gonna require a new radiofrequency standard called DSRC digital short range communications and that's for cars to specifically talk to each other in their own piece of radio spectrum it'll also tie into something called 5g cellular networks these are very low latency networks that will also be on things like smart phones but not expected in the market till at least 2012