Our General Principle and Vision whitepaper is the foundation document that influences everything we do. All of our work stems from this; it includes the road map for functional architecture documents (FADs), proofs of concept (PoCs), and our other whitepapers.

Since it was first written in 2019, however, technology has changed, as has the societal landscape. From time to time, we’ve updated the whitepaper to incorporate new ideas that we think will contribute to the success of connected vehicle service infrastructure.

The new version of the whitepaper, version 4.0.2, includes the following new topics:

  • Teleoperation
  • Green Mobility
  • Bringing Cloud-Based Services to Vehicles

The rest of the whitepaper was reviewed and the content is still as relevant as it was at the time of the release of version 3.0 on January 31, 2020.

Download the Updated General Principle and Vision Whitepaper

Context: The Challenge and Opportunity of the Connected Vehicle Future    

For those who are new to the connected vehicle infrastructure issue, experts predict that there will be 1.8 billion connected vehicles in 2030¹ with each car generating 1 to 2 terabytes of raw data each day ².

This means that we’ll potentially have 3.6 zettabytes of data to receive, process, and store every single day. To make the scale easier to understand, that’s over three trillion gigabytes (the average laptop shipped today has 256 gigabytes of storage space on the hard drive).

This far surpasses what the network can manage today, so there will need to be considerable infrastructure improvement in order to enable these services. OEMs, MNOs, and technology providers will need to work together to develop strategies for moving big data between vehicles, edge data centers, and the cloud — and the business models to fund them. According to McKinsey, connected vehicle services “could deliver $250 billion to $400 billion in annual incremental value for players across the ecosystem in 2030.”³

Key Takeaways from the Whitepaper   

Our General Vision whitepaper provides a clear outline of the challenges associated with realizing connected vehicles and offers a general direction for solving them. Other documents, like the functional architecture documents, offer more technical specifics.

One of the most important ideas in the document is the “distributed computing on localized networks” concept. This approach uses many smaller, local networks (AKA edge computing) to do most of the processing work required by connected vehicle services in the future. This means it can all happen much faster (as extremely low latency is required for any safety-related services), and the overall data transfer burden is reduced. Opportunistic data transfer (OTA) means that non-essential data can be exchanged with a cloud at times of low demand, such as at night.

The General Vision document also explains how, using a number of cooperating technologies, a variety of service scenarios can be addressed, including:

  1. Intelligent driving
  2. High-definition maps
  3. V2Cloud-assisted driving
  4. Teleoperation of vehicles
  5. Mobility as a service
  6. Finance and insurance
  7. In-vehicle experience homogenization
  8. Greener mobility

New Challenges to Overcome  

Teleoperation of vehicles is a very exciting use case, especially for logistics companies. Version 4.0.2 has included content to address services that assist operators with remotely driving vehicles, whether they are trucks, forklifts, construction equipment, or drones. All of these scenarios will require extremely low latency data transfer.

The whitepaper also looks at ways to make mobility more environmentally friendly and has some really great ideas to solve the problem of EV charging outside of the home. Considering that charging will likely be an issue for people who don’t own their own homes, these practical solutions could be a great help.

The challenge of bringing cloud-based vehicle services to vehicle systems is addressed. The key is that computing capabilities will vary depending on the make and age of the vehicle, and cloud-based software systems are very agile and are constantly being updated.

Get Involved 

The members of the AECC are working through exciting challenges like these. You can be sure that our members will be among the first to seize the opportunities that lie in the solutions.

If you’re part of an automotive OEM, a mobile network operator, or a related organization, you’ll want to be a part of the front wave of connected vehicle services. You can find out more about becoming a member on our membership page, or contact us to make an inquiry.

You can also view all our recent industry presentations and analyst webinars for more information.

References:

  1. https://transformainsights.com/blog/connected-cars-cellular-iot-5g
  2. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/unlocking-the-full-life-cycle-value-from-connected-car-data
  3. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/unlocking-the-full-life-cycle-value-from-connected-car-data