'I Want to be Alone' .... (in My Car)

In the connected car business there is a tendency to regard all technology as good technology. App developers and automotive marketers want to believe that all innovation is universally positive and appropriate and worthy of consumer embrace and adoption for use in the car.

Automotive social networking continues to be a tantalizing target as evidenced by the earliest automotive app integrations that included Twitter and Facebook.  New efforts to tempt drivers to distraction continue to emerge.

The latest endeavor revolves around license plates and, though clever, is doomed to fail.  At least one reason is the escapism that lies at the core of car ownership and use.  While driving we really do want to be alone.

The recent J.D. Power study reflected this sentiment by revealing a significant degree of disinterest in new technology among new car buyers.  Social networking is high on the list of don't wants.

The message is clear.  Beyond automated sharing of probe data for traffic, weather and road conditions - a la Waze, INRIX, TomTom and HERE - the prospect of inter-vehicle communication should remain the domain of safety critical systems.

But Paris-based TagYourCar has now arrived on the scene. Following in the footsteps of Bump.com and Platester, TagYourCar is out to create a social network based on license plates. The concept is intended to enable drivers or pedestrians to communicate with car owners via their license plate numbers.

A few notes on TagYourCar:

• The app is available in French and English in France, Belgium, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Israel. It is self funded and in its startup phase.
• Terms and conditions of use are here:
  https://tagyourcar.co/affichage/politiqueDeConfidentialite.php
  https://tagyourcar.co/affichage/conditions.php
• The app will be available very soon in : India, Singapore, Phillipines, Australia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and other countries. TagYourCar is part of the the French accelerator known as “The Family.”

The concept is compelling. Using license plate information someone could contact another driver to let them know their headlight is out or their tire is flat – or maybe a car owner could be notified of a vehicle theft in progress.

It is easy to imagine consumer vehicles equipped with license plate scanners seeking out registered plates of friends or neighbors. A hands-free automated system might be set up for seamless communication of urgent information or just friendly greetings.

A license plate network might also aid police officers or emergency medical technicians responding to crash scenes, providing critical information on potential vehicle occupants.

The app might even enable the first real-time vehicle-to-vehicle communication network. TagYourCar could allow drivers to share information directly about driving conditions – groups of commuters might even create virtual carpools.

But Facebooks’ exit from the dashboard business earlier this year ought to have served as a warning. Social networking in cars, though an interesting idea, is nothing more than a distraction.

The license plate-based network has been tried and it is simply not suited to the driving environment. Without an integrated license plate scanner the driver is obliged to try to read and enter the license plate numbers of other drivers in order to determine if they are registered. That is reason enough to steer clear of this concept.

There is also the opportunity for malicious or misleading communications with other drivers. There is a clear suggestion that drivers might now have to screen their TagYourCar calls.

The best indicator, though, is that Shanghai OnStar conceived and killed a similar concept about two years ago in China. The concept was intended to enable OnStar users to network with other OnStar users via license plate registration. Once again, the idea sounded great until the consequences were contemplated and the concept was killed.

SAIC Motors’ Roewe brand launched a similar kind of application with its Walkie Talkie feature in the Inkanet-equipped Roewe 350 five years ago. Roewe 350 drivers were able to chat with one another about the weather or soccer games while driving. During rush hour it was possible to see some significant use of the app – but support was not sufficient to extend its life. Walkie Talkie has joined Facebook on the dustbin of automotive social networking apps.

These experiences remind me of the wisdom of OnStar and General Motors when it comes to vehicle connectivity.  Keep it simple.

GM was first to build connectivity into its cars with a singular focus on safety - most notably automatic crash notification. Over the years OnStar executives war-gamed every conceivable connected car scenario, most often arriving at the conclusion that whatever the value proposition for a new service was it either wouldn't work or would not be sufficiently interesting to consumers.

A few concepts survived this brutal analysis including turn by turn navigation rendered in the driver information display and remote vehicle slowdown to catch stolen OnStar-equipped vehicles. But a lot of ideas that have since been introduced - to mild consumer interest - from competitors were long ago conceived and rejected by OnStar executives.

The point is, GM and OnStar have long understood the uniqueness of the driving experience. The car is the last refuge from all of life’s annoying distractions. The car is a freedom capsule unhitched from televisions and TVs and the Internet.

But now we are bringing the Internet into the car. And while we try to preserve the automotive equivalent of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, developers can’t always resist the temptation to tempt drivers with new apps.

Applications such as usage-based insurance and a license-plate-based social network sound great on paper, in principle and in Powerpoints. But the reality is, when we’re driving our cars more often than not we really want to be left alone.