BMW is still considering whether to use Android Auto and in the meantime has been moving forward with Apple Inc.’s CarPlay, which displays a version of iPhone applications on a car’s dashboard, said Niklas Drechsler, a spokesman at the Munich- based manufacturer. Daimler, meanwhile, still plans to join the Open Automotive Alliance, and “we’re talking to Google” about terms, said Katharina Becker, a spokeswoman at the Stuttgart- based company.
Politicians’ view
The underlying anxiety was clear in a position paper Merkel’s Christian Democrats presented at the party’s annual conference in Cologne on December 10.
“Soon, the performance of car digital systems will play at least as big a role in consumers’ purchasing decisions as the company that builds the car,” the party wrote. Internet- enhanced driving “opens enormous potential for German carmakers and suppliers, which are mainly medium-sized companies.”
Google is in “intensive discussions” with carmakers to develop technologies that would slash the number of accidents, cut emissions with more efficient transport routes and allow cities to reduce the number of parking lots, Jens Redmer, the software producer’s director of business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said last month.
One key will be setting up a shared database to swap and analyze information with manufacturers, he said.
“We see ourselves as partners rather than someone who turns the whole business upside down,” Redmer said. Or carmakers could just look elsewhere.
Information conduit
Phone companies including Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom are hoping to wedge themselves between automakers and software companies.
With carmakers eager to stay in control, Vodafone would function only as a conduit for information, said Erik Brenneis, who heads the Newbury, England-based company’s connected-car business. For example, Vodafone wouldn’t interject itself into the drivers’ experience by sending coupons for the closest McDonald’s, he said.
“We don’t want to challenge manufacturers on what to do with the data,” Brenneis said.