Google Cloud: 5 megatrends benefiting the mobility sector

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – 

Five megatrends have the potential to bring modern technology’s full benefits to the mobility sector and to improve the commuter experience, according to Dominik Wee of Google Cloud.

Those are autonomous driving, shared mobility, gaining deeper customer insights, digital manufacturing and connected cars.

“Autonomous driving is what we believe is the most fundamental one because it’s a big technological change, and it is a very, very big [physiological] change at the same time, right? Because you don’t have a human driving anymore,” said Wee, who is Google Cloud managing director of manufacturing and transportation, in an interview with Auto Remarketing.

On the Google Cloud blog, Wee wrote about the five megatrends in an article titled, “Shifting Gears: How the cloud drives digital transformation in the automotive industry.” He writes that although technology has improved many facets of modern life, more can be done in the areas of transportation and mobility.

“For example, look no further than your daily commute,” Wee writes.

He cites research by INRIX showing that since 2015, time spent in traffic has more than doubled in many major cities around the world.

He told Auto Remarketing that “the automotive industry is going through a very fundamental disruption.”

“I mean, so many things are happening,” he said.

He added, “And technology is really at the bottom of it. So technology is becoming more important than ever for automotive companies to stay competitive. And we basically want to highlight how we at Google can contribute to that transformation.”

Autonomous driving

Companies need to test cars in complex digital simulations, he writes, noting that Google custom-built Cloud TPU for AI workloads.

“Its high-speed network offers over 100 petaflops of performance in a single pod — essentially making it an on-demand supercomputer,” Wee writes.

“He adds, “So, no matter what your workload is, we have the world-class AI infrastructure to run it as efficiently and inexpensively as possible.”

Shared mobility

Any conversation involving the improvement of transportation would have to include ridesharing services, Wee writes.

He notes that the Google Maps Platform help ridesharing and delivery companies improve driver navigation and the overall efficiency of their fleets.

Wee continues by discussing shared mobility at a driver level, stating that developers can embed a Google Maps-powered turn-by-turn navigation experience into their applications.

Because of that, drivers don’t have to switch between apps to get directions or information. Also, companies can retrieve data about a driver’s journey.

“With this programmatic control and insight into drivers’ behavior, organizations can better allocate drivers, ultimately decreasing drivers’ idle time and customer wait times,” Wee writes.

He shared a story of a Google ridesharing user who reported a 4% reduction in drive times and up to a 48% increase in the accuracy of estimated times of arrival.

Gaining deeper customer insights

Wee writes that gaining customer insight can be difficult because customer-related data is often fragmented. Some of that data resides with dealerships and some with the manufacturer.

Siloed data, Wee writes, can lead to inefficiencies, especially in the area of automotive incentive spending. He sources McKinsey in stating that those incentives are among the greatest expenses for car companies, but the companies do not understand and manage those incentives well.

He says discounts and rebates introduce complexity for dealers and OEMs in areas such as customer money, dealer money, and lease discounts.

“This complexity can result in real pricing confusion,” Wee writes.

He sourced J.D. Power’s 2018 U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index, which showed that 14% of customers who shopped but didn’t buy a vehicle at a dealership said not getting a straight answer on price was their reason for not buying. He said Google Cloud can optimize automotive incentives to help OEMs and dealers control costs and “eliminate confusion.”

Digital manufacturing

Wee writes that the automotive manufacturing shop floor “remains mired in decades-old systems and siloed data.” But he adds that many manufacturers see opportunity in digital transformation and are making it one of their top priorities. He again sources McKinsey in stating that automated production and data exchange can cut costs, increase yields and support new manufacturing methods.

“Automotive companies, however, often want to run manufacturing workloads on premises,” he writes.

He adds, “This could be for a number of reasons, such as latency, data residency requirements in some countries, and customer preferences to keep data local.”

He notes that Google’s managed, cloud-native platform, Anthos, addresses these challenges. It also allows customers to “develop and operate their systems as if they were in the cloud,” he writes.

Connected cars

Wee describes today’s modern automobile as “a supercomputer that generates enormous amounts of data.”

“Unfortunately, much of this data is unstructured, in siloed systems, and vulnerable to hacks,” he writes.

He adds that at the same time, vehicle electronics and software are becoming much more complex.

“Between 2010 and 2016, the lines of code required for an average vehicle increased 15-fold, while the complexity of suppliers and processes has also multiplied,” he writes.

He said his company wants to make automotive software simpler and help companies gain insights from the data their fleets generate. Android is a big step in that direction, he writes, with automotive OEMs showing “significant adoption.”

He adds, “With the cloud, we can offer a fully integrated approach to telemetry, making it much easier to extract and run analytics on vehicle data.”

He concluded by describing transportation and mobility as “a complex field.”

“Its digital transformation has the potential to touch almost every single one of us in some way,” he writes.

He continued, “Our solutions aim to help automotive companies continue to make that transition, and we look forward to seeing the innovative ways they use cloud technology to reach their goals.”



Source : AutoFinanceNews