From The Daily Telegraph (Australia), January 13:
‘Nobody bloody owns the customer’: Polestar boss tees off about the $2.2 trillion battle for the dashboard
General Motors ditched Apple and Google from many of its EVs in the multi-trillion dollar fight to control the dashboard. But Polestar’s CEO can’t see what the fuss is about.
Thomas Ingenlath – the affable German in charge of Swedish EV brand Polestar – bristles at the mention of the $US1.5 trillion ($2.2 trillion) fight between automakers and tech giants for the last unconquered screen: your car dashboard.
The battle centres on digital subscription services. General Motors even ditched Google Apple and Google from many of its new electric vehicle models last year in favour of developing its own software, so it could generate more revenue from drivers.
There are billions of dollars at stake, with some market analysts expecting digital service revenues could hit $US1.5 trillion globally by 2030.
Tesla boss Elon Musk said “technically we could sell for zero profit for now and then yield actually tremendous economics in the future through autonomy” and other subscription services.
But Ingenlath – who describes Musk as a “special extrovert character” – can’t see what all the fuss is about.
“This question about how much you can share and who has the benefit from this … almost always culminates in the question ‘who owns the customer’. Always. But nobody bloody owns the customer,” Ingenlath tells The Weekend Australian.
“The customer owns the car. We don’t own it. We serve the customer and we serve the customer together with Google the best experience.”
Indeed, automakers have a patchy track record when building their own infotainment systems, given the upgrade cycles lag the tech titans who release new phones every year, backed by myriad software updates annually. Drivers have often complained about car manufacturers’ proprietary systems being clunky and less intuitive than the experience they can get on their iPhone or Android device.
This has become more important as a car no longer becomes a place to travel from A to B. It’s becoming almost like a lounge room, with big shiny screens that can display anything from Google Maps to Netflix, while at a click of a button you can control your home appliances such as airconditioning units and washing machines....
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