Five Japanese car brands, namely Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu, Toyota and Mazda, will collaborate on ‘connected services’, or everything that enables cars to communicate with each other and with their environment.
Anyone who thinks that our work is always fun and easy should take a good look at the following sentence from the accompanying press release:
“Suzuki Motor Corporation (Suzuki), Subaru Corporation (Subaru), Daihatsu Motor Co. Ltd. (Daihatsu), Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota), and Mazda Motor Corporation (Mazda) reached an agreement to jointly develop technical specifications for next-generation vehicle communications devices and to promote the common use of communications systems, by using connected services to link automobiles and society with the aim of creating new appeal, value and services, to be standardized for early provision of safer and more convenient connected services. “
So, and that on King’s Day. The bottom line is that the aforementioned five brands have come to realize that they and the customer benefit if the development of ‘connected services’ is not tackled individually, but is seen as a joint job.
This provides financial benefits for the developers, but according to these five brands it can also mean that development goes faster. In addition, they believe the user-friendliness of the products and services benefits, among other things through stable and reliable connections.
Common basis
Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu, Toyota and Mazda simply keep the development of apps and other software and infrastructure in their own hands and therefore also keep their own style, but will soon build those functions on a jointly developed basis that controls, for example, the communication between smartphone and car. .
At the moment, the brands seem to be concentrating on these types of functions, but of course the future is also being looked at. According to the brands involved, the cooperation is just so important because of the major changes in the car country, summarized under the acronym ‘CASE’. That stands for Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric, or connected, autonomous, shared and electric. In all these areas, technology that connects cars with each other, with the environment and with the user is of great importance.
Door not quite shut
For example, it seems to us that the joint development of these types of technologies has especially advantages when it comes to communication between the cars of the brands themselves. We already know such a system with Volkswagens Car2X, but cars are not yet talking to copies of other groups. With this type of collaboration, this suddenly becomes possible, although the Japanese brands do not specifically mention this function.
The big absentees at this Japanese party are of course Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi, with the latter possibly having to do with the close ties with Renault. However, Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu, Toyota and Mazda keep the door ajar for more partners, so the collaboration may be expanded later.