The ecosystem’s pain points are scale, cost, and diverse latency requirements. For example, open standards, solutions, and technologies will need to address the connected car data explosion and provide connectivity with a more accessible communication structure. Harmonization is required among multiple systems, including vehicles, networks, and cloud servers, as well as diverse needs for particular latency specifications. Some applications, such as high definition (HD) map creation and machine learning, don’t require low latency communication to collect data. A scenario like this does not negate a latency requirement; rather, it means that the application will leverage a latency allowance to increase the system capacity and capability.

The data volume between connected vehicles and the cloud is estimated to reach 10 exabytes per month around 2025, approximately 10,000 times larger than the present amount. This expected increase will trigger the need for new architectures of network and computing infrastructure to support distributed resources and topology-aware storage capacity. The new architectures will be compliant with applicable standards, which requires collaboration on a local and global scale.

IHS Automotive forecasts that there will be 152 million actively connected vehicles on global roads by 2020. The combination of new vehicle features and aftermarket devices could mean nearly 2 billion connected vehicles on the world’s roadways by 2025. Conservative estimates from IHS Automotive state the average vehicle will produce up to 30 terabytes of data each day – 3x the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress. This requirement means a communication infrastructure that drops a signal or a service provider that charges according to a data plan will no longer be feasible for anyone.