Category: Automotive Technology solutions

Over-the-air Software Updates (OTA), Software Defined Vehicle (SDV), Digital Twin, Edge Computing, Cloud-to-Cloud Integration

EXTRA! Vehicle-to-Grid Expansion Saves Planet!

EXTRA! Vehicle-to-Grid Expansion Saves Planet! The Roadmap Newsletter

the AutoMobility Roadmap on California’s energy dynamics and the role of electric vehicles! Despite challenges in solar overgeneration, EVs present a solution to utilize surplus energy effectively.

An Automobility Start-up from ITALY!

Innovation and technological development in the automotive industry is a global phenomenon. Companies hailing from all over the world create and invent revolutionary products and services, driving the advancement of technology forward at a breakneck pace. Hailing from Rome, Italy, 2hire, an auto mobility company specializing in car sharing, rental, and connected services, is one of these global innovators. Founded in 2015 as a moped-sharing company for students of LUISS University in Rome, 2hire has humble beginnings. The company quickly became something more though, transitioning from focusing solely on scooters to connected vehicles in 2016. CEO and Co-Founder Filippo Agostino, COO, and Co-Founder Elisabetta Mari, and Head of Product Design Giacomo Agostino describe this transformation the best: “The 2hire team is composed of tech experts who have a strong background in the communication protocols of vehicles. Our team was originally founded with the mission of bringing shared and sustainable mobility to the city of Rome through the launch and operation of an electric moped-sharing service. However, over time, we have pivoted towards developing the technology that supports these types of services. Our approach is software-based, which sets us apart from our competitors and allows us to offer a hardware solution that is easy to install and customizable for each mobility operator’s specific needs.”  By 2017, 2hire had rolled out a brand new prototype device that was able to remotely lock and unlock the doors of a Fiat 500L. Securing multiple investments from venture capitalist firms, 2hire was able to turn this prototype piece of hardware into a universal device and launched an API layer named the “Adapter,” which would become the foundation of their business, and allowed them to take the company international. Less than two years later, 2hire was providing mobility services to vehicles and companies in Italy, Spain, France, and across South America. Driven by a relentless passion for sustainable technology, the 2hire team took a small startup firm and turned it into a rapidly growing global presence. When asked what motivated them to push through the trials and tribulations of being a startup, Filippo, Elisabetta, and Giacomo asserted that they “have always been interested in the mobility industry and saw a significant need for innovation in the car rental and fleet management space. The idea of helping people move more efficiently and sustainably was very appealing to us, and we saw a huge opportunity to make a difference in this industry.” Now in the first quarter of 2023, 2hire is as ambitious as ever. Thus far, the company’s technology has received widespread acclaim in Europe and South America. With over 15 million cars that can access the company’s services across 100 cities in 23 countries, it is no surprise that their technology is known for saving time and operational costs due to its ability to provide innovative solutions that help mobility providers in the car rental, peer to peer car sharing, car sharing, and fleet industries. With all of these successes in Europe and South America, 2hire is making the leap into the North American market with the aim of becoming an essential partner for mobility providers as they transition towards fully connected fleets (i.e. rental cars, delivery vans, corporate vehicles).  Recently, Filippo, Elisabetta, and Giacomo traveled from Italy to Boston and Atlanta to showcase their technology to potential partner companies. With this trip to the United States, it’s clear that 2hire is ready to take the next step in expanding their business to an even larger international market. Having interests expressed in this technology by OEMs, major rental car companies, and car sharing platforms, 2hire demonstrates their ability to provide bona fide seamless integration solutions between service providers and connected vehicles while also supporting automotive companies in making their cars easily accessible to a growing ecosystem of digital service providers.  From here, 2hire can only go up as they gain traction and secure partnerships in the United States.  Taking a business from a small startup composed of college friends to a global company doing business with Fortune 500 corporations is no small feat. When asked for advice on lessons for other startup companies in the mobility space, the 2hire team shared three key pieces of guidance: For more information on 2hire’s technology and business, visit their website and LinkedIn page. Information on Filippo, Elisabetta, Giacomo, and the other members of the 2hire team can be found on each of their LinkedIn pages.  And you can learn more about how the AutoMobility Advisors team works with companies like 2hire and can help you and your business seize the amazing opportunities waiting for innovative companies ready to serve the new mobility market. Click on the link below and get in touch, we’d love to talk with you!

The Auto Digital Experience Fight Club

George Ayres Automotive | Leader | Sales | Marketing | Mobility | Connected | Electric | Autonomous | Shared | Revenue | Growth 18 articles Ok, what happens when you put all the competitors in a room and tell them to start swinging while simultaneously placing bets to pick the winners (and of course the losers) too? You guessed it, a fight club where it’s everyone for themselves. Makes a good movie perhaps, but does it make for a good way to digitally transform the automotive user experience? Are owners, drivers, riders, and fleets better off with tools that only work in one setting, or vehicle, and not in another? Do you need to put on a new pair of digital driving shoes each time you jump in a different car? Well, currently we are witnessing a sort of fight club mindset within car software experience development. It may get a little bloody, so hang on. First, some boundary, or “ringside ropes” terminology to clarify this discussion. In the battle for the Digital Experience within Automobiles there are many terms, but all eventually come down to the same thing: How the car works when you’re either inside it, or controlling it remotely when outside of it. We can include ideas like “Software-Defined Vehicle” and the in-vehicle “Operating System,” in this mix. And proprietary names like Apple CarPlay or Google’s Android Auto are part of it too. And Amazon Alexa, as a way to control the experience with your voice, is included. And now we can add new names like “Ultifi,” General Motor’s new “end-to-end software platform” that is “designed to unlock new vehicle experiences and connect customers’ digital lives” as their announcement recently said. All of these things are coming together very rapidly, and the gloves have now been taken off all the participants. They used to play nice together, but now it’s getting serious. For decades of course, only the carmakers controlled how the car worked; how you turned the radio on, adjusted the climate control, or how the car collected data. Then they started working with other companies like Verizon and WirelessCar to enable “telematics,” a way to transmit vehicle information to an off-board platform and for the vehicle to receive instructions “over-the-air” or OTA. Then smartphones came along and customers started to complain that if they actually complied with the local highway safety rules, and did not use or talk on their handheld phone while driving, then the car effectively became a black hole for them. They were “off the grid” in terms of data and communication when they were driving. Since nearly everyone now relies on text, email, internet, and voice, to do basically anything, the automakers then needed a way to integrate these phones into the car so they could be used on the move without distraction. So Apple was given access to the vehicle and introduced Carplay, and Google was given access and introduced Android Auto. This was a love/hate relationship for most Auto OEM’s because when they give access, they lose control of the experience. Sometimes they forget of course that customers really LIKE their Apple i-phone experience, and enjoying this in their car as well is a good thing for owner loyalty. Once the door was open and the tech companies had access, they started pushing on it harder. Many Auto OEM’s have now signed up to let them too, and we’ll see if they are taking a punch in the process. At right is a recent listing from Google about the OEM’s that use the Android Automotive O/S. And just this week Apple made a big announcement about the new CarPlay and its ability to “more deeply integrate with a car’s hardware.” Ouch! Here is a view of what they mean. Without leaving the Apple interface you will be able to adjust climate controls, for example, so that you’re not jumping between CarPlay and the vehicle controls, keeping you inside the Apple O/S while you drive. It’s kind of like pushing you up against the ropes and holding you there awhile. From a carmaker point of view, ceding control of the customer experience for actually operating the car must be gut-wrenching. But they have already done it for music and “infotainment” so why not for other functions? But where does Apple stop and the Automaker’s own systems begin? How will GM’s Ultifi, for example, work with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay? What is Ultifi giving up? Who is going to win the fight for control of the experience? It’s a melee today. Below as great chart from my friends at MotorMindz that shows a few good examples of how some Auto OEM’s are betting on winning this fight themselves. Of course for over 100 years automakers have controlled how their cars got built, but once sold, they were done. The only things they needed to worry about was paying for repairs under the warranty. Now they want to control, or at least participate in, how their cars get “operated and updated” by the first, second, and even third owners. Over the “lifetime” of your vehicle, they want to continuously upgade how your car works, help you enjoy improvements in operations and performance (and charge you for this) and generally make a car like a smartphone, with easy to install OTA updates. But what happens when Apple decides they don’t want to make that change to how the climate control gets adjusted, either because they are not ready or because they are not getting paid to do it? Does the Automaker have any recourse to force them? Giving up control has a downside if you are an OEM. Of course, the driver or passenger wants the best experience, so delays in making updates, or incompatibility stemming from a fight for control of the experience, may end up disappointing users, who will remember who’s car worked seamlessly, and who’s didn’t. One of the reasons Apple has been successful across phones, computers, tablets, and even tv’s is