Toyota introduces next-gen connected vehicle framework; globally uniform DCM by 2019
05 January 2016
Toyota unveiled its next-generation connected vehicle framework at CES 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, accelerating its initiatives to provide its customers with greater convenience and increased data security. The framework builds on advances in automobile, IT, and communications systems to enhance Toyota vehicles with connected technologies.
Toyota’s connected vehicle framework is anchored by the installation of a Data Communication Module (DCM) into a broader range of its vehicles starting with model changes in 2017 in the US market. Availability will expand to additional regions and countries following the US. Adding DCM will connect Toyota vehicles to cellular telecommunications networks, expanding the ability to transmit data for products and services.
For vehicles equipped with DCM, Toyota will also provide emergency notification system as a standard feature, which is activated by airbag deployment during a traffic accident and supports prompt initial response in an emergency.
To build the IT infrastructure needed to support this significant expansion of vehicle data processing, the company will create a Toyota Big Data Center (TBDC) in the Toyota Smart Center. TBDC will analyze and process data collected by DCM, and use it to deploy services under high-level information security and privacy controls.
Toyota will also develop a globally uniform DCM by 2019. DCMs are currently different depending on the region and country, but will become a standardized architecture. The company will also, in the Toyota Smart Center, create a function to consolidate its DCM communications globally.
At the same time, when using a customer’s smartphone with an in-car device, it is very important to help promote safer driving and the transmission of vehicle and customer information in a secure manner. Toyota will jointly develop standard middleware with UIEvolution, Inc. (UIE) for application to Toyota’s in-car devices globally.
With this business collaboration, UIE can develop a smartphone app which uses vehicle data and provides it to third-party service and app providers authorized by Toyota with UIE’s service environments. It enables a customer’s smartphone to access vehicle data in a highly secure environment through TBDC and Toyota can offer its customers safer and more secure smartphone-car connection services.
Mirai Creation Investment Limited Partnership, a fund in which Toyota participates as an investor, invested $5 million in UIE at the end of last year.
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