Qualcomm today announced its Car-to-Cloud service, which does exactly what the name implies: it helps car companies connect their cars to their clouds. It’s the companies first product that integrates its automotive cockpit platform and Snapdragon automotive platforms with 4G and 5G support.
The platform will help automakers keep their cars up to date and allow them to update their infotainment platforms over the air. In addition, they also can use the service to gather vehicle and usage analytics, which Qualcomm argues will allow them to unlock new revenue streams as it allows carmakers to market pay-as-you-go services and unlockable features to their drivers.
As car ownership is changing, so are drivers’ expectations. Having an updatable infotainment system is pretty standard on new cars these days, but those updates usually happen over Wi-Fi (or at the dealership). Qualcomm argues that this service helps to make cars future proof and will lead to faster deployment time frames for updates, as well as more cost-efficient operations. It also notes that this technology will provide for new connected services and better on-demand services for car sharing as Car-as-a-Service companies.
For drivers, it’ll lead to more personalized experiences, which today are normal in the high-end market but are only slowly trickling down to more affordable cars. But Qualcomm is definitely also pushing the fact that this will allow car companies to sell bundled content, apps and services to drivers, creating new revenue streams for them.
“The Qualcomm Car-to-CloudService, when combined with our Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G Platforms, and our Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms, empowers automakers and tier-1 suppliers to address new expectations of the modern and discerning car owner who is used to flexible and continuously updating technologies, while also unlocking new features capabilities over the course of a vehicle’s lifetime,” said Nakul Duggal, senior vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies.
