Cars of the Future - Open Systems will make them Better and Safer

Everyone should really check out this GigaOM article about GM creating open systems within their future cars. It is really important because if GM or others can pull it off, our cars will be much better and safer in the future.

The automotive industry has done a great job with automation within the vehicle – collision avoidance, camera based parking, navigation systems, entertainment systems. But the cars computers are like early 1990’s PCs. They are powerful, but not connected to the internet.  As such the car only takes advantages of local computing power and data. It gets no benefits from the cloud. Another problem with this is that smartphones can’t be easily integrated into car and this has led to some pretty massive safety problems as drivers try to connect to cloud based systems. Its not just texting and driving. We check Twitter and Facebook and email or use Google Maps which generally provides better navigation than the $3000 standlone system in your luxury car.

GM’s bold plan can change all that.  If car manufacturers open up their telematics systems to developers, a wide range on cloud based apps could be connected through the driver's smartphone and be integrated into the car’s telematics and onboard infotainment systems. These apps can be disabled or voice enabled to ensure that driver distraction is minimized when the car is moving.

The car has to be the last sophisticated computing environment that does not connect to the Internet. This vision can change all that.

During my eight years at Google, I had the chance to do a lot of neat things and while everyone equates Google Enterprise with Google Apps, we also built a very good business licensing the Google Maps API to companies.  It was in that capacity that I found myself with Eric Schmidt at GM headquarters with their executive team. The conversation was wide ranging, but when it turned to in car systems, Eric’s advice was simple. Open up the telematics operating system to developers! My recollection was that the advice was not met with universal applause and I understand why. The traditional approach for the company, who makes the most vehicles in the world, would be to stay closed and try to do everything by themselves. Opening up takes courage and guts. If this article by GigaOM is correct, then GM is taking the right path. Open always beats closed.

If GM can get this right, I think they can produce better and safer cars.  I have only ever owned one GM car in my life, but if they pull this off, I will be buying more.