We’ve been hearing about the connected car for some time — but how far is expectation from reality? Is there a model that will help us understand when this will really happen? Cisco say it’s closer than we think.
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With the whole Internet of Things (or Internet of Everything if you listen to Cisco) well and truly capturing a massive level of hype – it’s this year’s “big data” – lots of people are wondering when our cars will get in on the act.
At its Cisco Live 2015 US event in San Diego, Cisco says one way we can predict when cars will become connected — and we don’t mean autonomous but where cars can access and share data — we need to look back to the 1960s when seatbelts became mandatory in cars made in the US.
It only took a few years seatbelts to achieve mass market penetration.
Cars in the United States will require the integration of the wireless comms standard 802.11p. This will allow cars to create a mesh network to share and receive data. Officials are planning for the technology to become mandatory in new cars by 2017.
With about 17 million new cars entering the market each year in the United States, and a total car population of around 240 million cars, it’s possible to predict when we’ll tip over to having a population of cars that are connected.
Based on those numbers, within about ten years, more than half the cars in the United States will be connected. We’re not saying there’s a direct correlation with Australia, but we’d expect to follow that trend.
Disclosure: Anthony Caruana travelled to San Diego as a guest of Cisco.
Comments
2 responses to “Connected Cars Are A Lot Closer Than We Think”
I’m all for connected cars, especially when it evolves to connect cars with infrastructure, for example, cars that are aware if the light ahead is red and the driver isn’t showing signs of slowing down, but I really hope security is at the core of this connected future.
It’s not an over the top idea to think that people could use the technology in reverse to cause harm, to send an innocent car plowing through a red light, or to cause a car to suddenly break by putting a ‘fake’ obstacle in front.
Interesting and exciting times for the motor industry.
Let’s see how this change the motor industry.
Epic connected cars: https://youtu.be/6XOoAs-K8aU
I think the notion of having connected cars is not far-fetched and can actually be achieved much earlier than expected. This is due to the easily available technology that is so vast and ready to help aide this mission.