I’m humbled to be announcing that Otonomo has entered into a commercial agreement with Mitsubishi Motors. This initiative will provide Mitsubishi Motors’ connected car customers with exciting new services while adhering to international data privacy regulations. Mitsubishi Motors is the first OEM in Japan to enter into a global partnership with an automotive data service platform, which is a bold and innovative move. We also see our partnership as an early indication that the Asian connected car market is starting to mature—which could create exponential growth for the ecosystem.
Paving the Way for New Driver Benefits
By integrating with the Otonomo Automotive Data Services Platform, Mitsubishi Motors vehicles can seamlessly share data with third-party services and application providers. Here are few of the emerging use cases that could utilize the data:
- Smart electric vehicle (EV) charging: With drivers’ permission, combine location data and electrical range to recommend the most efficient charging stations
- EV trip planning: Give EV drivers the tools to plan long-distance trips in their vehicles, while taking into account all of their charging needs.
- Parking: Combine data from cars with mapping information to guide drivers to open parking spaces in an urban area. Automate parking payments.
- Road hazard identification: Use real-time and historical data on accidents, hard braking, or speeds to identify hazardous sections of road and plan for necessary improvements.
- Vehicle preventative maintenance: Use statistical analysis to predict when a part needs replacement or a vehicle needs service based on that vehicle’s actual usage and operating conditions.
- In-vehicle delivery: Accept deliveries from retailers or third-party logistics providers directly to a vehicle’s trunk.
- On-demand fueling: Bring the gas station to the vehicle and eliminate refueling trips.
- High-definition mapping: Capture dynamic traffic information from vehicle sensors to efficiently develop and update high-definition (HD) maps.
- Smart cities: Use connected car data, in combination with Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks, to keep traffic flowing. Develop richer data inputs for real-time traffic flow optimization, efficient traffic light controls, parking space identification, public transport, and road congestion and condition notifications.
Putting Driver Privacy First
Driver privacy and international regulatory compliance were important factors driving the Otonomo-Mitsubishi Motors partnership. Our technical integration will be designed to support both personal and aggregate use cases:
- For personal use cases, the Otonomo Consent Management Hub can track the driver’s consent to share data with each service to which he or she signs up or subscribes, for example an EV charging recommendation service or a parking app. In this use case, the EV charging service would need to get data on the vehicle’s location and battery level. Drivers may revoke consent at any time.
- For aggregate use cases, the Otonomo Dynamic Anonymization Engine applies a sophisticated set of de-identification techniques to the data generated by individual vehicles. Data is delivered to these applications in bulk.
Generating a Global Impact from Connected Car Data
As we work with Mitsubishi Motors on this new connected car ecosystem, we expect that it will generate a profoundly positive impact on global drivers, passengers, municipalities, auto companies, smart cities, industries, and economies around the world. The rollout will begin in North America and Europe this year and will then expand to Japan. This will represent an important milestone not only for Otonomo but also for our entire industry.
