We have heard and seen a lot about Smart Cars or Connected Cars in past few years. It’s still a work in progress, and but we will eventually reach there in some time.
In India, Tata Motors is the first company to put its step forward to bring Connected Experience for vehicles in collaboration with Microsoft. It’s set too far future because the big bet is on Microsoft Azure cloud and the Internet. The later is still not up to the margin, but the way data wars had been hitting lately, I would expect internet penetration to be 10 times in 2 years.
Mr. Guenter Butschek, CEO & MD, Tata Motors and Mr. Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, announcing the collaboration, to redefine the connected experience for automobile users. This aims at enhancing in-car connectivity and efficiency for an enriched mobility experience. The first vehicle developed through this partnership will be unveiled at the 87th Geneva International Motor Show on 7th March 2017.
Tata Motors plans to use Azure Cloud computing to bring advanced navigation, predictive maintenance and vehicle-centric services, remote monitoring of car features, external mobile experiences and over-the-air updates for their vehicles. It will use advanced analytics, machine learning, IoT and artificial intelligence to monitor.
As shared on Microsoft Blog:
- Based on their profile and location data, vehicle owners can receive proactive point-of-interest, shopping and route assist recommendations enabling them to achieve more on the go.
- Pre-emptive service alerts based on vehicle health data will enable owners to avoid costly downtime en-route on planned road trips.
- Using industry-leading firmware over the air (FOTA) and software over the air (SOTA) updates protocols, key vehicle settings can be updated remotely, over the cloud. These will help cloud based diagnostics and the ability to use insights from vehicle data to prevent warranty and recall issues and offer new services that improve the user experience.
- By capturing, analyzing and acting on live road conditions, vehicle owners will be able to increase safety, optimize vehicle performance by avoiding roadblocks and rough terrain. By unifying navigation, data elements like maps, weather, traffic, and parking the solution can deliver optimized routing and location based services to vehicle owners.