Today’s cars, especially EVs, are more connected than ever. If you own a modern vehicle, there’s a good chance it’s sending and receiving all sorts of data each time you drive it. For the most part, that data is being used to make your life easier — from providing you navigation to your destination to finding a functional charger on the way. Stellantis is looking for ways to leverage all the data it’s collecting from its vehicles, and has announced a new business unit called Mobilisights to focus on just that.
In a roundtable discussion with Mobilisights CEO Sanjiv Ghate earlier today, we learned more details about this new initiative from Stellantis and its goals. Naturally, anything that involves the gathering and selling of data has its fair share of concerns, especially when it includes our vehicles. Ghate revealed that Stellantis currently has about 12-million connected vehicles, but that number is expected to grow to 34 million by 2030. Mobilisights will operate as an independent business unit, that is well-funded according to Ghate, and will collaborate with data partners to license its data to a wide range of customers, including other automakers. To address concerns about data and privacy, Ghate stressed that Mobilisights and its partners will “operate within a very strict data governance and privacy policy.” That means using anonymized and aggregated data, while only sharing personal data of customers with their consent and only for the specific services they chose. Even after they give their consent, customers will be able to opt out of information being collected, used, or shared.
For now, Mobilisights is focused on helping enable a smarter, more connected world. Ghate explained the power lies in the numbers, and with the number of connected Stellantis vehicles accessible by Mobilisights, much of the aggregated and anonymized data can be put to good use. Some examples given include using traffic as a service, and helping find available parking locations. Much of the data being collected can also provide insights that are beneficial to local governments and law officials.
The other focus is on consent-driven services where customers can opt-in to share their data for personalized reasons. For example, if a customer is willing to share data on their driving habits with their insurance companies, they may qualify for lower insurance rates. Data can also be used for personalization services such as locating charging stations, get their charging rates, and find out which charging stations currently have wait times.
One important thing to note is that Mobilisights isn’t actually building out any of these tools or applications. Instead, creating a third-party system is its focus, working with service providers and application builders who can leverage the data. It’ll be interesting to see how Mobilisights competes with other major tech services that are already collecting that data and using it — such as Google and Tesla.
“The vision for Mobilisights is to contribute to a smarter world, leveraging the insights that vehicle data provide to inspire innovative applications and services that can transform and dramatically improve the day-to-day lives of users and businesses,” said Ghate in a press release. “Harnessed effectively, sensor and other data available from connected vehicles can enable a wide range of services and applications with compelling benefits, ranging from personalized usage-based insurance to road hazard detection and traffic management. With its 14 iconic brands and millions of connected vehicles, Stellantis has unmatched global data scale capable of powering this business forward.”
