“Smart” vehicles, electric vehicles and autonomous cars are the new future of transportation. This next-generation technology makes the automobile industry a hotbed for innovation and enables huge revenue opportunities for digital merchants.
Today’s automobiles continue to add more computing power, video cameras, sensors and data storage. These “data centers on wheels'' use 5G and other low-latency network technologies to establish faster internet connectivity and highly accurate location detection.
Digital cars’ continuous modernization of tech will offer consumers frequent, small-value digital commerce opportunities daily.
The dashboard of the car is considered prime real estate for service providers to improve and digitize. Automobile dashboards are customizable per a consumer's preference – whether that be a top-notch stereo system or keeping it classic with a bobblehead or two – the future of electric cars will offer personalized custom options for technology.
The demand for an automated and seamless digital commerce experience has taken a front seat as automobiles and their captive audiences emerge as a new business sector for digital services. Advancing automotive technology paves the way for many alternative revenue opportunities for service providers.
Automobile video displays are getting bigger and have become increasingly more powerful, providing viable substitutes for smartphones to connect with and help pay for the outside world beyond the car.
Whether consumers need to pay for parking spots, charging stations, premium content within the car or groceries, updated tech in smart cars will make it possible to handle financial transactions from behind the wheel.
Additionally, new-age automobiles have the potential to frequently communicate and automatically engage in small-value digital commerce with electric devices outside the car, simplifying transactions for errands and everyday matters.
Drivers will have a range of automobile-enabled services to pick from, such as smart navigation systems, augmented reality displays and on-demand entertainment services. Not all of these services will focus on the automobile making the payments; in many cases, a service provider like a smart traffic system or a popular coffee chain might offer to pay the driver for sharing data collected by the vehicle.
Collecting data from automobiles is an integral part of the new connected-car ecosystem. Similar to internet users, vehicle owners are generating petabytes of valuable data that is useful to everyone – from ad-generating firms to a smart traffic management system.
The digital experience in a car will soon look and feel similar to your office or living room. The revenue opportunities for service providers are enormous. Prepare to expect the dashboard of new-age cars to be a digital, personal assistant.
The dashboard’s connected technology to the internet will rewire how to approach everyday tasks and errands. The challenge of digital cars’ frequent, small-value digital commerce opportunities is to keep the experience seamless, secure and private to ensure the safety of the driver and valuable consumer data.
Sushil Prabhu (pictured above, left) is the CEO and Chairman of Dropp, a micropayment transaction platform.
