IBM is forming a joint mobility venture with SEAT, the Spanish subsidiary of Volkswagen, that will eventually let customers talk their way to a better journey, the latest front in a brewing technology struggle for connected-car supremacy among German automakers.
Announced during last week’s Barcelona Mobile World Congress, IBM is working with SEAT on applications that would use artificial intelligence and fifth-generation telecommunications technology to help drivers get where they’re going – with or without ther cars.
The news came days after BMW and Daimler revealed additional details of their billion-dollar join venture that promises to deliver an array of application services to 60 million potential customers. The developments are one of a convergence of technological trendsOpens a new window reshaping the auto industry at the dawn of the autonomous vehicle era.
Big Blue’s Watson artificial intelligence tech underpins SEAT’s Mobility AdviserOpens a new window , a tool under development that would  allow drivers to navigate their cars and trucks through urban streets. And if the roads are too congested, the Mobility Adviser would give drivers the option to park their cars and use public transportation, shared bikes or even SEAT-made electric scooters.
Machine learning will help the Mobility Adviser assess preferred routes, the companies say, and then relay that information via a conversational interface to get the SEAT drivers to their destination faster and with less hassle.
The technology takes into account everything from event-driven disruptions to weather forecasts in devising its recommendations. The information is delivered over a mobile application that runs both on the 4G LTE communications standard and the 5G standard now rolling out in developed markets around the world.
The Spanish carrier Telefonica and the network operator Vodafone began trials for their mobile platforms in Spain last year. The tests got underway even before the Spanish government tenders the full spectrum of frequencies for fifth generation mobile devices.
IBM’s partnership with the Volkswagen subsidiary results from its spearhead into the German auto-making heartland of Bavaria. In February 2017, IBM opened its Watson IoT HeadquartersOpens a new window in Munich to encourage collaboration with its 750 internet-of-things patents.
In June of ’17, IBM and VW signed a five-year agreement to develop mobility and procurement services. Centered on cloud platforms and artificial intelligence, the plan in part calls for leveraging Watson in an e-commerce ecosystem of customer services for fuel, accommodation and travel.
Meanwhile, BMW and Daimler, the maker of Mercedes Benz cars and trucks, are making immediacy the centerpiece of their connected excursion into urban mobilityOpens a new window . U.S. competition authorities signed off on their planned joint venture in December, clearing the way for the companies to press ahead with a vision of uniting a full spectrum of vehicles, communications technologies and transportation services.
Five branded offerings leverage automotive tech with mobile applications. They include ride- and vehicle-sharing services called FreeNow and ShareNow, which are designed to help users hail cabs, hire drivers or locate rental cars and electric scooters.
Another service called ChargeNow will point the way to electric vehicle charging stations, while ParkNow will let drivers reserve parking spaces and pay online rather than using meters or ticket booths. The ReachNow platform for mobile applications would tie it all together, facilitating booking and payment.
Many offerings are already in place in large population centers, including in North America. The investment will build on footholds that include more than 100,000 power points for electric vehicles and fleets in 25 countries and parking operations in 1,100 American and European cities.
Headquartered in Berlin, the BMW-Diamler initiative builds on existing partnerships that both companies maintain with suppliers and technology providers. Last June, Daimler unveiled a partnership with the German parts supplier Bosch and NVidia, the Silicon Valley maker of systems-on-chips for gaming and image-rendering. The partnership is advancing autonomous-vehicle technologies with its Drive platformOpens a new window for applications development used by nearly 400 companies.
About the same time, BMW announced a connectivity-focused joint venture with Portugal’s Critical Software. It’s a step in a strategic transformation to what BMW calls a mobility tech companyOpens a new window that promises to put 500,000 electrified vehicles on the road by year’s end.
While prototyping the Mobility Adviser, SEAT is reviewing possible applications for Watson AI and ML at the independent XOMBA testing center. SEAT also is exploring integrating its Justmoove way-finding application into the applications.