Solving the Connected Car Muddle

When General Motors began connecting cars back in the late 1990's the primary objective was to deliver emergency services to vehicles that had suffered a crash severe enough to trigger the airbag. Once the solution was adopted, though, it became a hardware, software, and services cost center, so GM began dialing for dollars - looking for sources of revenue or cost savings that might be derived from the connection. That expensive connectivity device had to pay for itself.

This search for the connected car pot of gold led immediately to tapping vehicle diagnostic data - a relatively low bandwidth proposition - to identify emerging system failures either prior to or shortly after the launch of a new vehicle in order to avoid (SAVE) hundreds of millions of dollars in down-the-road warranty costs from expensive dealer repairs. At the same time, GM and other auto makers added connected services like stolen vehicle tracking and recovery, remote start, remote lock/unlock, etc.

None of these added services could match the cachet of the original automatic crash notification application - OnStar. But it was just the beginning of the emerging connected services eco-system that would grow exponentially to include everything from parking reservations to social media.

In these early days, car makers weren't too worried about cellular coverage. As one senior executive told me, the only thing they really cared about was whether they had cellular coverage at the dealership, so the device in the car could be provisioned when the vehicle was sold.

That's all changed. Smartphones arrived on the scene. Consumers turned away from OnStar-style messaging. Auto makers kept connecting cars, but consumers really didn't care and, more ominously, didn't want to pay.

Today, cars are increasingly defined by connectivity. The average consumer may bring their smartphone into the car and connect it to the in-vehicle system, but the typical car today has a telecommunications module (TCU) built in and that device is collecting and transmitting data all the time - as much as 4GB/month for the average new car driven by software updates, connected navigation, and a host of other connected safety and infotainment systems.

This connected value proposition has cost implications for the car maker. But those cost concerns are mitigated by the value creation inherent in that data exchange. Vehicle data is really valuable to the car maker.

The TCU in a typical car is in effect a sensor constantly reporting on the quality of cellular coverage (for all carriers), the performance and usage of in-vehicle apps, the status and performance of the TCU itself, and the availability of Wi-Fi for side-loading of data. Car makers have only just begun to recognize the nature and value of all of this data and, thankfully for them, a company has emerged to deliver the analytics to extract that value: Endeavour Technologies.

Endeavour provides connectivity analytics with applets on the SIM (subscriber identity module), on the TCU, in the head unit, and in the customer's smartphone app. Using proprietary and patented algorithms, Endeavour is able to extract and interpret error logs, user app power consumption and usage, Wi-Fi availability, network coverage availability and quality, and the performance of remote access functions.

Car makers have never completely come to grips with the implications of connecting cars. At last, Endeavour has the tools to identify regional network strengths and weaknesses; diagnose hardware, software, or network failures; and understand consumer behavior and preferences.

Endeavour has been beavering away at the automotive connectivity challenge for about a decade and has only recently brought its solutions out into the sunlight. With the onset of 5G technology, with lower latency and the potential for direct device-to-device communications, cellular connections have entered the sacrosanct sanctum of safety and collision avoidance.

The combination of safety relevance and software updates has meant that for auto makers, understanding the quality and availability of network coverage is no longer optional. Understanding and being able to diagnose connectivity failures in connected cars is now mission critical.

A typical auto maker today - with hundreds of thousands or millions of connected cars on the road - may have thousands of expensive TCU replacements at dealerships every year as a result of being unable to diagnose the source of connectivity failures. Without technology like that provided by Endeavour, car makers have no visibility to or answers for customer complaints regarding coverage issues.

Wireless carriers will never be able to claim top notch quality of service (QoS) for their entire geographic coverage areas, but Endeavour delivers the tools to help car makers and carriers work together to identify and remedy high priority low/no coverage areas. The next phase will be the integration of side-load capabilities - using Endeavour analytics to identify the proximity and availability of Wi-Fi networks suitable for offloading critical vehicle data or software updates.

Endeavour Technologies represents on-module, on-SIM enabling technology that will empower the automotive industry to finally better understand and properly manage vehicle connectivity - including the possibility of swapping carriers in a more ad hoc manner based on QoS analytics. These value propositions are available today but deploying and putting them to work will take time. In the end, though, it may enable a more pleasing connected car experience for the consumer. It may also contribute to an eventual turn away from projected smartphone solutions, as consumers come to rely more frequently on the embedded connection in their car.

AT&T Claims the Car Connectivity Crown - https://library.techinsights.com/search/analysis-view/AIT-2302-802#pdfId=192b05b7a30c4500b53a15a95bda2c69 - TechInsights

Mercedes-Benz Completes First Carrier Swap in the U.S. - https://library.techinsights.com/search/analysis-view/AIT-2210-804#pdfId=70f1aec331ef485a85256a6a1800cc0d - TechInsights