Google’s announcement of a free Google Maps Navigation app for the Android smartphone platform was the opening salvo in a new round of competition for consumer automotive applications and devices. The most visible impact was the immediate hit to the share prices of Garmin and TomTom; Google’s giveaway of a full-featured mobile navigation application, with real-time traffic updates, street view maps and integrated search upends the hopes of these stand-alone device makers for supplementing their revenues with high-priced navigational apps for the iPhone and other smartphones.
Taking a broader view, it’s clear that the competition for a choice seat in the connected car ecosystem is still in its early stages, with even more players likely to join the crowd. All indicators are that wireless for the car will change from a luxury feature to a must-have option over the next few years. Gartner Research predicts that by 2012, more than half of new cars will have some form of wireless data connectivity. One of most important dividing lines in wireless data to the car is still being debated – whether embedded safety and vehicle control telematics strategies such as GM’s OnStar subscription service can hold onto their market share in the face of more recent, less costly, bring-your-own-wireless-connection navigation and infotainment options such as Ford SYNC.
The original safety and emergency road assistance focus of embedded wireless telematics carried a high price point that was difficult to scale, particularly with the base cost of building embedded wireless into mid and low-priced cars requiring revenue recovery. It’s too easy for consumers to drop subscription-based telematics services like OnStar, especially when drivers are already paying for (or getting for free) similar services on their smartphones. In the short term, that bolsters the Ford SYNC model with its focus on infotainment and smartphone integration, especially since SYNC can be upgraded to include high-demand features such as safety 911 calls and vehicle performance reports. The long term trends, however, may swing the needle back toward embedded wireless, at least for certain applications and vehicle categories. Widespread adoption of electric plug-in vehicles, if it comes, will highlight some important advantages of embedded wireless modules all over again. Embedded telematics solutions are directly linked to vehicle performance and engine diagnostic information, and in the case of electric cars, to the battery status. Embedded wireless can offer real-time monitoring of the electric car’s battery charge, with navigational links for smart routing to the closest compatible re-charging station. That will be worth a lot if the alternative is being stranded mid-trip with a dead battery.