The touch screen of the Renault Clio. Photo / Ted Baghurst.
Once upon a time everything in the car sector was straightforward. Products were defined by design, size, comfort level, safety, price and, naturally, horsepower, with brand-new models emerging roughly once every six years.
But, according to car expert Stefan Bratzel: "These days customer wishes have changed dramatically."
Tyre and component
giant Continental provides a good illustration of this. The company is developing ultra-detailed maps that could be used by autonomous cars driven on autopilot.
"The digitalisation of our entire lives continues apace," says Conti boss Elmar Degenhart.
Search engine giant Google recently snapped up the navigation app Waze, which lets users inform each other about traffic conditions. It has been experimenting with driverless cars. Two huge, profitable industrial sectors are nudging up to each other. Vehicle technology fields are morphing into virtual topics. Conti is working with network systems supplier Cisco and IBM, and Degenhart believes that the car will become a part of the internet.
