Sensor Data Crowdsourcing to Transform Connected Car Services

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Connected car services are approaching a market inflection point, as datasets from the millions of connected, sensor-equipped vehicles on the road are leveraged to enable new and compelling connected car services. OEM revenues from monetization of automotive sensor data are expected to reach $706 million, representing a CAGR of 46.8% according to ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm providing strategic guidance on the most compelling transformative technologies.

“The crowdsourcing paradigm sits at the epicenter of the major automotive megatrends, with the rapid growth in ADAS and connected infotainment expanding the installed base of connected and sensor-equipped vehicles to the point of critical mass,” said James Hodgson, Senior Analyst at ABI Research. “By leveraging the experience of the crowd, rich semantic datasets can be used to improve legacy applications such as parking or traffic information services, or to enable brand new use-cases such as user-generated maps for autonomous driving.”

While parallel automotive megatrends are driving adoption of the core enabling technologies, crowdsourcing requires a new level of openness and cooperation across the automotive industry. “Coopetition” allows for the sharing of datasets across OEM and supplier boundaries, ramping up adoption of the paradigm by broadening the real-world experience on which new services are based. This has driven the development of neutral, third-party platforms for data set ingestion, anonymization, enrichment and dissemination such as HERE’s Open Location Platform, or the data marketplaces of dedicated startups like Otonomo and CARUSO. Some OEMs have also begun developing in-house platforms, such as BMW’s CarData platform, launched in partnership with IBM. Outside of cooperative frameworks, some industry players are actively leveraging their massive software presence at the edge to develop new services, for example, Mobileye has announced that from 2018 connected vehicles from Nissan, BMW and Volkswagen will contribute sensor data to the Road Experience Management user-generated mapping platform.

“As OEMs transition into mobility service providers, their revenues will shift from product sales to monetization of fleet-based assets,” Hodgson concluded. “The crowdsourcing paradigm represents an important first step for OEMs, as they look to maximize the value of their assets for ongoing revenue streams.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Transformative Connected Car Services Built on Data Crowdsourcing report. This report is part of the company’s Smart Mobility & Automotive research service, which includes research, data, and Executive Foresights.

About ABI Research

ABI Research provides strategic guidance for visionaries needing market foresight on the most compelling transformative technologies, which reshape workforces, identify holes in a market, create new business models and drive new revenue streams. ABI’s own research visionaries take stances early on those technologies, publishing groundbreaking studies often years ahead of other technology advisory firms. ABI analysts deliver their conclusions and recommendations in easily and quickly absorbed formats to ensure proper context. Our analysts strategically guide visionaries to take action now and inspire their business to realize a bigger picture.