In the car of the future, the car entertainment system will be even more important, says a new study from Forrester Research.
Once cars are autonomous, the car screen will become the next movie screen, say some reports. Cars may become entertainment mobiles.
Americans spend about an hour a day in their cars. If their focus during that time switched from keeping their eyes on the road to watching video, that would generate more than $20 billion in extra revenue for the video industry, said a 2016 report from Ernst & Young.
Sure, drivers might simply watch video on a tablet, but Ted Schilowitz of Paramount Pictures points out that the car windshield and windows are at the perfect distance to act like screens. He asked, “Can the windshield be the movie screen of tomorrow?” quoted the Hollywood Reporter.
People won’t just watch movies on their way to work, however. They’ll actually work, check email and conduct phone meetings, said Forrester. But luxury car brands will start offering high end entertainment “experience” systems. They will “shift their messaging from high-performance engines to Ultra HD entertainment systems,” and advertisers “will compete for a spot inside the new vehicle experience,” Forrester said.
None of this is right around the corner. By one forecast, 12 million fully autonomous cars will be sold globally by 2035 (today 17 million cars sell annually in the US).
But the groundwork for self-driving cars is quickly developing. And the speculation is starting on what will become of certain businesses and technology.
With Tesla just now introducing the Model 3, Wired noted that its real plan is, with a touch of a button, to let car owners to turn their car into a freely roaming autonomous vehicles that can be shared with other drivers.
“Instead of sitting unused 22 hours a day, the car will be able to drive itself and passengers, to earn money for you while you sleep, work, or go on vacation. That puts the company in direct competition with other giants of the auto world, from Uber working on driverless cars and Waymo testing self-driving minivans in Arizona…” said Wired.
Keith Lehmann, a consultant to car makers and former executive at Kenwood Electronics said the first run of autonomous cars will be commercial fleets of taxis, buses, etc. In the meantime, the aftermarket will be able to serve semi-autonomous vehicles by adding sensors, new screens and new services, he said.
Photo of BMW Vision via CarJam TV
only the young men and women who walk into light poles while fingering their phones will go for this.
There has been tons of prognosticators from predicting the death of privately owned vehicles to a renaissance of in car entertainment. I find this assessment by Keith to be the most likely. The day may come when people no longer feel the need to own their own vehicles, but other than urban markets, it is many years away. I have believed since the day the subject of autonomous cars came up that the opportunities for in-car entertainment and work space functionality will explode with possibilities.