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In a move that could backfire badly, car manufacturers are working together to buy control of Nokia maps with the intent of blocking Google's development of software for self-driving vehicles. The auto-makers consider open sourced autonomous vehicles to be an existential threat to their existing business, and are prepared to pay Nokia more than two billion dollars to stymie the disruptive technology.
“The greatest threat to the automobile industry would be if Google developed an operating system for self-driving cars and made it available free to everyone,” said one source speaking with the WSJ.
http://jalopnik.com/bmw-audi-and-mercedes-benz-want-to-buy-nokia-s-maps-t-1702660909
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BMW, Audi, and Mercedes Want to Buy Nokia's Here Mapping Group
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift.
-- Shelley
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @10:26PM
Because making the rest of the car is easy?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday May 07 2015, @11:06PM
Because The car makers would: 1) then have to pay Google for the software, and 2) would lose sales of map updated to Google who would probably provide them direct to the end users.
Map updates for In-Dash car systems are ridiculously expensive. about 140 a pop if your car uses Garmin - (which is Nokia/Here in disguise), and up to a couple thousand if your car is made in Germany using one of their proprietary systems. Yet a Separate on-dash Garmin can be bought with lifetime maps and traffic updates.
Having Here maps (via Garmin) in my car I can tell you that they are pretty close to being eclipsed by the quality of Google Maps and Navigation on my Android. Street-View cars and their own Satellites have given Google a leg up.
I'm sure these car manufactures can whine to the EU to punish Google for being better if this gamut fails.
Google has self-drive software, and they have maps, and these guys see a lot of lost profit in the future.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @11:13PM
Losing revenue from lost map updates sales doesn't seem an existential threat to the car industry.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday May 08 2015, @01:32AM
Have you tried google maps and street view lately?
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday May 08 2015, @02:10AM
Not more than once or twice a day, just about every day. I'm always looking up something it seems.
Don't like the new format on the computer, but it still works.
Plus, the google maps app on android has a navigation feature with voice turn by turn directions,
as well as integrated traffic. With a dash mount it is quite suitable for navigation.
Only problem with Maps app on Android is large expanses of No cell Signal zone, in out of the way
places like great expanses of the US South West (deserts especially) and Upstate New York, New Hampshire, and parts of Vermont.
For those places the best bet is to remember to download the maps for off-line use [google.com].
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sigma on Friday May 08 2015, @12:58AM
Because making the rest of the car is easy?
Easy enough for Google to have already built a fleet of them [dailytech.com].
If you're thinking of autonomous cars as a conventional vehicle with a few gadgets bolted on to make it drive itself, you're right, existing manufacturers have an advantage. Thing is, the people managing those car companies understand that driverless vehicles are a truly disruptive technology and are looking a little further ahead. They're looking at a future where cars designed from the ground up to be autonomous won't be constrained by the need for all the human interface junk, nor the social structures around human drivers (parking, fuel stations, drivethrough food, shopping malls etc, etc).
One obvious outcome is that far fewer cars will be needed when a vehicle can, for example, drive papa to work, back home to drop the kids at school, come back to take mama to her job, perhaps refuel and and park itself, or more likely, be a pool/on-call car (Uber-style) for the rest of the day.
Car makers know there'll be a multitude of less obvious disruptions as well, and in that future, their experience and tooling is of far less value, and in fact could be a burden on their ability to adapt fast enough to compete.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday May 08 2015, @04:18AM
Didn't this happen before [wikipedia.org]?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday May 08 2015, @10:25PM
Yes [wikipedia.org].
1702845791×2
(Score: 4, Insightful) by davester666 on Friday May 08 2015, @06:13AM
They see it as the next step of the car industry.
Previously, you effectively pay for the car up front, and the manufacturer only gets a little more ongoing money from dealers for parts/labour [as part of their franchise arrangement].
Now, they want you to pay up front for the car, AND pay monthly fee's to use the features of your car that you already paid for [like, say, navigation maps or wifi]. And if they make it easy for Apple and Google to just hook up their phone [or even worse, just have it in the car and it works], that makes the sales pitch for paying for maps and another monthly cellular bill that much less appealing. And as a bonus, they can track how and where your drive, what's going on with your car and sell it to make even more money. And then there are helpful ads that need to be displayed [turn left into the Arby's parking lot, and buy a Philly for 20% off].
IoT is going to be the death of us. Every manufacturer sees it as a way to generate revenue first, and helping the customer second [if at all].