Driverless cars and the content opportunity

In the long term, BMW’s ultimate driving machine becomes an ultimate lounging machine in which travellers – not drivers – journey to their destinations. The car becomes an autonomous aluminium box in which passengers will work, relax, consume content and even sleep. The car of the future will carry the brand values of its maker. A Mercedes will feel like a Mercedes and a Nissan will feel like a Nissan and this will be enabled by the styling of the vehicle and the fabrics used in its construction. Sound and vision will also play a vital part.

“With electric and autonomous cars, it becomes a different beast,” says Roscoe Williamson, head of branding at MassiveMusic, a specialist in audio branding which has worked with Mercedes and BMW. “It’s much more about the environment you want to be in and what you want to do in the space.”

As they turn to new business models such as leasing, car sharing and the sale of services related to vehicles, car makers are working closely with technology providers to ensure they are enabling the next generation of vehicles with the technology required to underpin in-car services. Williamson says Toyota is working with Microsoft, Volvo with Nvidia, BMW with Intel and Ford and VW with Amazon to enable improve voice interaction with cars.

“As someone living in car-dependent LA, I dream about using driverless cars as a workspace,” says Gilles Boisselet, the chief strategy officer at Unit9, which is currently developing an in-car entertainment app on behalf of a car market.

“Cloud-based connected software could be used to…