Auto Express

Connected cars’ data shock

Just turning on wipers can make money for app developers

- Martin Saarinen Martin_saarinen@dennis.co.uk @Ae_consumer

THE next time you turn on your windscreen wipers or switch radio station, consider the impact it has. If you’re in an old car, it’ll be minimal. If you’re in a new, ‘connected car’, this activity is likely to be noted by one of hundreds of sensors on board, sent to the maker which passes that info to a third party developing a driving app.

Big data is revolution­ising the car industry, giving accurate traffic reports and cutting the emergency services’ accident response times. Yet drivers are leading this transition; they’re the ones generating all of this data. Auto Express spoke to one of the firms gathering and selling data generated by the latest cars to see how it works.

THE DATA EXPERTS

“TO get an idea of the scale of things, consider the first space shuttle,” says Lisa Joy Rosner, chief marketing officer at tech start-up Otonomo. “It had 500,000 lines of code to break the sound barrier. In 2020 there will be cars that contain 100 million lines of code.”

Models capable of warning owners of traffic jams ahead, service requiremen­ts and even alerting emergency services to accidents are already on the market. By 2021, experts suggest up to 98 per cent of new cars will be connected, so they’ll be transmitti­ng data from hundreds of sensors in real time. But it’s what makers do with this informatio­n that is important for drivers to understand.

Otonomo is one of several start-ups specialisi­ng in gathering and selling data obtained from cars. Already working with 10 manufactur­ers, it receives real-time data from over two million cars globally.

The Israeli start-up specialise­s in collecting, ‘cleaning’ and anonomysin­g this data and then selling it on for app developers and other third parties.

The result is services such as ondemand refuelling, where parked cars are topped up with fuel by a specialist provider accessing their location and remotely unlocking the fuel cap.

Interestin­gly, no brand or even model shares the same data language. “We’re the Rosetta Stone of connected car data,” Rosner tells Auto Express. “Each make and model has a different language. We unify that data so it’s one language and in one place for all manufactur­ers.”

A single car can come with anywhere from five to 500 different data points that are of use to manufactur­ers and developers, each of which is valuable.

Drivers turning on their windscreen wipers could act as a signal to weather stations in the future that it’s raining or snowing, and they can accurately change their forecasts. Changing a radio station can let broadcaste­rs know which music is liked and disliked.

“In the same way, if a car gets intonto an accident in the future, emergency services rvices and hospital emergency rooms will be alerted to the G-forces of the accident, ent, which airbags were detonated, as well as where the accident took place,” explains Yael Rivkind, director of partnershi­ps and strategic initiative­s es at Otonomo. “This will help them better prepare for any incoming casualties.” es.”

But all this changes the way drivers ers should be perceived. As with users of

“Each make and each model has a different language. We unify that data so it’s one language and in one place for all manufactur­ers” LISA JOY ROSNER Chief marketing officer at Otonomo

services like Facebook or Instagram, they are now participat­ing in what is called ‘productive consumptio­n’.

By driving, using the radio and even turning on windscreen wipers in the rain, drivers are creating value for other companies without being compensate­d for it. Otonomo counters that drivers will be offered more tailored services.

Data privacy also lies at the heart of the debate. Before General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gave citizens control over their data, drivers would sign over their rights when buying the car. “This was usually buried deep in the document,” says Rosner. “Now [with GDPR] the use of driver data must be front and explicitly stated in the contract.”

AA president Edmund King says drivers should still be the ones “who decide if they want to share” their data or not, and that simply agreeing to share it is not enough.

Otonomo has already launched a Consent Management Hub that allows drivers to see which aspects of their data is shared with third parties, so they can choose which informatio­n is kept private.

A Sunday drive may no longer be a solitary experience in the future. As with internet browsing, any push of a button will generate value somewhere.

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Nearly every function in a connected car’s interior generates real-time data
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