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Over the past decade or so, the automotive industry has gradually become more technological. The 2018 rear-view camera law has made displays a major reason for all new cars to come with displays, but the trend is being driven by consumers who are keeping an eye out for smartphones and tablets, executives say. prize.
But automakers don’t just adopt shiny gadgets and keep releasing software. They also want a slice of lucrative “recurring income” that pleases tech investors but leaves the rest of us feeling nickel and dim. , which gave us concrete data on how much car buyers want this stuff.
AutoPacific asked potential new car buyers about their interest in 11 in-vehicle connected features. We started with a car data plan at a virtual price of $15/month.
This result may chastise some investors who demand that auto companies continue down this path. The most requested or desired feature was internet connectivity using Wi-Fi hotspots. $15 a month isn’t an unreasonable demand. However, only 30% of those considering buying a new car said they would be interested in paying for internet access in their car.
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AutoPacific split the data into those looking for an internal combustion engine vehicle, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, or a battery EV. His 37% of PHEV buyers said they want in-vehicle internet, down to 32% of BEV buyers and 28% of fossil fuel customers.
Robby DeGraff, Product and Consumer Insights Analyst at Autopacific, said: “Although not ideal, an EV’s battery takes much longer than an ICE vehicle to refuel. Thankfully, while the vehicle is parked, the infotainment screen in the center of the cabin is , is the perfect place for consumers to conveniently go crazy,” he continued.
Other features AutoPacific surveyed among car buyers overall performed worse than in-car Wi-Fi. Twenty-three percent said they would be interested in remotely controlling some vehicle functions via their smartphone for an additional $10/month fee. (Again, this was as high as 29% each for his PHEV and BEV customers, and just 21% for ICE buyers.)
As you can see from the graph, connected features become less popular from there. The final place is in-vehicle commerce. He wants 1 in 10 of her people looking to buy a new car to be able to buy something from the infotainment screen. This fact may be causing concern in some parts of the FinTech world. Again, we saw a powertrain split. Only 8% of ICE buyers want to purchase things through their infotainment screen, but this has increased to 13% of PHEV buyers and 15% of BEV buyers.
AutoPacific also grouped some of the data by age group. His 30-to-39-year-old group was consistently most interested in his car’s connected subscription features. 28% want to stream video directly to the infotainment screen, 20% want to play video games on the infotainment screen and 18% want video conferencing in the car. As you can imagine, the 60-69 demographic was the least interested in this stuff. Only 10% want in-car video streaming, 5% want video conferencing, and just 4% want in-car gaming.
