Car manufacturing have all the stakes in the insuretech / fintech game for automotive
A recent FT article presented to the reading audience the number of miles driven by cars in the US since the Interstate Act that made far routes enjoyable and clearly stimulated the development of open and recreational vehicles.
It also, as the time went by, gave the manufacturers access to the data they have been using to adjust the inner workings of the car’s chassis and suspension — as well as learning the habits formed by those behing the driving wheel so that it could track and act on the feedback.
The information deemed solely for the corporate use has never been shared or used to openly benefit the user — until recently the geek community started chatting about the advent of self-driving cars and the way these algorithms are best created by the internet-born companies: teslas and the googles. Seems like the classic automotive world is backtracking, but when we look again at the data they have and what can be now aggregated and analysed in a new way — the dinausar industry may stage a comback on several fronts:
> Provided the access is enabled to car accidents — automotives can track not just industrial scale mishaps that impact the airbags or gearboxes — but grasp the larger sentiment around how their cars are driven
> They could better calibrate the rates of hire-purchase and leasing based on the intimate detail on how the cars are driven
> The OEM itself can operate the pay per usage plan for insuring, additionally protecting and financing the vehicle only when it is used
The end idea is that the data component has always been with the manufactures, but the missing link has been about not giving it the scrupulous look as the data driven giants are expressing today.
Several possible scenarios can be seen:
OEM partnering with financing companies and insurance companies to broker the annual coverage through the app of the user, as the black box controls for all variables of the car and signs it with the private key, pushed from a smartphone app of the user
As the cars are becoming increasingly self-driven, the whole deal of insuring them on a case by case basis disappears and is switched by a wholesale deal. Where originally each individual contract was calculated, managing fleets of autonomous vehicles changes the game where the fleet as a whole is under the insurance contract. This is already the case with banks insuring their fraud risks or cyber risks — and is coming to car insurance as well.
Turning car sales business into transportation service platform is no mere feat in itself, but the initial slump of new car sales may portend an envisioned future with people not owning cars, but increasingy using them as the cost of having one in the moment diminishes to a negligible state.
Hence, having the payment and insurance coverage in the moment is an important part for the manufacturers.
Interesting times indeed.
