“Our automobiles will not be smartphones, we design them to final” – Mercedes-Benz boss Ola Rällenius on tech

Posted On Oct 28, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

The interior of the Mercedes-Benz Vision EQS

These are evoking occasions for the automotive industry, as advances in in-car technology are poised to revolutionise the car as we see it today. Mercedes-Benz is among those resulting service charges, and in a roundtable discussion at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, Daimler chairman Ola Kallenius has exposed some of the company’s key minds, as well as the challenges it will face over the coming years.

The 50 -year-old Swede portrayed the first time the carmaker have taken part in the Consumer Electronics Show( CES) in Las Vegas, previously the earmark of tech firms.” The first time we proceeded there, I think it was in 2008, parties were requesting themselves,” What is a carmaker doing up there ?”

” When I went to the CES at the beginning of this year, it felt like there were more cars than other inventions! And the tech corporations utilized gondolas to demonstrate their technology .” he said, referring to the high-profile showcases from tech heavyweights like Nvidia, which roped in carmakers for the see.

The reason for this, according to Kallenius, is that the opportunities for the amalgamation to new technologies into vehicles have opened up.” Way back when, the car was a mechanical island. Today, it’s the ultimate portable design. It really is a smartphone on wheels ,” he said, adding that the appearance of 5G connectivity will only hasten the development of in-car tech.

We can already hear the luddites pondering,” But I change my smartphone each year or two, I can’t supersede my auto each year !” To which Kallenius replied that while a car of today may have the technology of a smartphone, it has been developed in a completely different way to make it sturdy and, hence, last longer.

” Needless to say the engineering target of a vehicle is very much different from, let’s say, the engineering target of a smartphone or some other electrical machine, so we have to design it for longevity ,” he said. As for the growing level of electrification in autoes these days, Kallenius said that an electric motor can ” more or less go on forever”, with battery slump over term posing more of a challenge.

” Maybe there will be, at some level, some sort of backwards conformity or new batteries in our vehicles ,” he said.” It’s still early days. But we do pattern our motor vehicles and the electrical fractions for longevity .”

Another concern users have these days is data privacy. Business like Facebook and Google have gotten into hot soup recently over their suspect sharing of personal information to third parties for money gain, and while Kallenius didn’t rule out Daimler potentially benefitting from the use of their own owners’ data, he said that at the end of the day, the company must serve the customer first.

To do this, the company is being transparent by allowing users to opt in and out of individual services as they see fit.” Most apps have one very long terms and conditions that most people don’t read and then they click, and they don’t know what they did ,” he said.” With our Mercedes me services, we allow you to choose what you want, at the individual service level .”

Kallenius adds that while Daimler could still make money through your data, it will simply do so if it provides a meaningful benefit to you.” If we can offer you a utilization subject that you want and that is beneficial to you, and at the same time it could be a business case for us, that’s what we’re pursue .”

Mercedes is also in the midst of digitalising its marketings and commerce treats in order to improve the buying experience and reducing costs.” You will still have offline[ sales ], but you will have an even more seamless online-to-offline experience .” he said.

Kallenius added that the company is trialling new ways for buyers to purchase their cars, following in the steps of Tesla’s strategy of selling directly to shoppers.” Actually, in my home country in Sweden, we’re experimenting with a direct sales model, with fastened pricing, where “the consumers ” actually buys immediately from car manufacturers, and the marketer acts as an agent.

The post ” Our gondolas are not smartphones, we design them to last-place”- Mercedes-Benz boss Ola Kallenius on tech seemed first on Paul Tan’s Automotive News.