Infotainment Services Boost Cloud-based Vehicle Platforms

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The emergence of connected infotainment services such as off-board navigation, social media integration, music streaming, and in-car Wi-Fi and accompanying application frameworks is driving the adoption of cloud-based vehicle platforms enabled by embedded or tethered 4G broadband cellular connectivity. However, more strategic functionality such as OTA for vehicle lifecycle management, analytics and big data for smart mobility and autonomous driving, and how cars will interact with the wider IoE for services such as vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-home will be the key drivers propelling the cloud into a mainstream automotive technology.By 2020, more than 40 million cloud-enabled vehicles will ship yearly.

“Despite the numerous benefits of the cloud including flexibility, scalability, real-time updates, and customization, the specific nature of automotive solutions imposes the need for hybrid solutions, guaranteeing uninterrupted performance when the connection is temporarily lost, for example, through hybrid navigation as touted by vendors such as HERE. On the other hand, vehicle-centric and safety-critical features such as ADAS and automated driving will heavily rely on on-board processing due to low latency, availability, and reliability requirements for features such as collision detection with the cloud playing a more complementary role. It is this delicate balance between on-board and cloud-based service delivery that will constitute the very character of next-generation connected car solutions,” says VP and Practice Director Dominique Bonte.

At the same time, the proliferation of cloud platforms adds to already growing concerns about privacy breaches and security threats, which in turn impacts safety. However, the cloud itself will turn out to be the best possible protection allowing real-time monitoring and updates, not just for adding or improving features but also to remotely fix security gaps, as BMW recently found. Inevitably, big IT companies Microsoft and IBM, but also vendors such as Ericsson and Verizon, are positioning themselves as key providers in this new automotive environment.

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