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The World’s Most Connected Cars: Smart Cars | Accent by Chubb
- 1. The World’s Most Connected Cars Cars are about to catch up with smart homes.
- 2. The World’s Most Connected Cars Since your home has become so smart (with systems allowing you to control lighting, heat and security remotely), why not connect your car, too? So-called connected cars are a big buzzword among car buyers—but what can they do? Connected cars contain devices that connect to other devices outside the car, including other cars, your home, office or even now your Apple watch.
- 3. The World’s Most Connected Cars And while the fully connected car sounds awfully futuristic, cars since 2010 have contained some connected features. The best known is OnStar, a roadside navigation assistance system that helps contact authorities and rescue workers in case of an accident. GPS navigation is another connected feature, as are hands-free controls, in which the car’s unit will respond to voice commands, such as “Navigate to the nearest gas station.”
- 4. The World’s Most Connected Cars Other services include steering for parking and engine controls. Then there are 4G Wi-Fi hotspots, such as the one offered by GM in its Chevy Malibu 2015, and in Audi's A3—the first 4G LTE-connected car in the U.S. AT&T and Volvo entered into a multiyear agreement last year, in which AT&T began enabling high-speed wireless connectivity in Volvo’s 2015 models.
- 5. The World’s Most Connected Cars The Sensus Connect in-car platform lets drivers access the Internet via any in-dash display— helping them navigate, connect to music and even turn the car into a mobile hotspot for kids with tablets in the backseat. Of course, Tesla has led the pack of connected cars— its corporate site even bragging, “Most cars don’t improve over time. By contrast, Model S gets faster, smarter and better as time passes …
- 6. The World’s Most Connected Cars Model S actually improves while you sleep.” Its features include blind spot and side impact warnings, and even a warning system to let drivers of the electric cars know if they’re going out of range of a charging station. A forecast by IHS last year anticipates that by 2017, more than 86 percent of vehicles on the road will be connected, and that by 2021, every new car sold in the U.S. will be connected.
- 7. As auto connectivity speeds along, automakers now have to deal with the same privacy and security concerns that consumers are dealing with elsewhere—with smartphones and smart homes. The more connectivity features associated with your car, the more room that leaves for potential hackers. Recently, a pair of technology researchers wirelessly hacked a Jeep Cherokee through its Internet- connected system, allowing them to take control of components like the engine, brakes and steering, and sending the driver into a ditch. Security and Safety Concerns
- 8. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego found that they could control features on cars of many makes through everyday text messaging—by exploiting vulnerabilities in cellular-capable hardware that’s sometimes plugged into the vehicles’ OBD-II ports. Among the scariest revelations at the famous hacking convention DefCon this year was a $32 device rolled out by a security researcher that can intercept radio waves containing the codes that are sent from a key fob to the vehicle it controls. Security and Safety Concerns
- 9. But what keeps automakers competitive is debuting more features, so don’t expect a technological rollback. What you can expect, according to carmakers’ chief technology officers, are automatic updates that let a car company’s security team remotely patch security holes as fast as they’re found. The race to connect may be in its early stages, but it’s on. So keeping up to date on your car’s features will be crucial. Security and Safety Concerns