HERE Lands Major Navigation and Connected Car Win with JLR, but Will It Stay Part of Nokia?
by Dominique Bonte
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HERE Powers InControl Touch Pro Infotainment System of the New Jaguar XF
NEWS
Nokia’s HERE recently announced the first OEM implementation of its embedded HERE Auto platform, announced in September 2013. It will power the new Jaguar XF‘s InControl Touch Pro infotainment system, which features a 10.2-inch head-unit screen and a full digital instrument cluster, first shown at the New York Auto Show. It will be rolled out on more JLR models in the future.
Cloud-based navigation features include:
- Personalized, daily-relevant experience through route-learning capabilities based on commuting patterns and preferences and recommendations for preferred fuel brands or other destinations
- Integration with in-car diagnostics for low fuel alerts and suggestions for the nearest fuel station
- Multimodal / intermodal capabilities via out-of-the-car trip planning and pedestrian navigation through iOS and
Android smartphone companion application syncing automatically with the embedded system
- Live traffic information including automatically suggested alternative routes
- Approach mode with destination information (street view) and parking possibilities
- Sharing estimated time of arrival with friends including updated ETAs in case of delays
- Single search box accepting multiple key words
- HERE’s Connected Car Offer Is Uniquely Positioned in the Market
IMPACT
HERE has gone a long way from its origins as digital map vendor NAVTEQ. Being part of Nokia, originally still including Nokia’s handset business, has allowed it to expand into location platforms and navigation software for smartphones and other devices. The recently launched free navigation applications for Android phones and the iPhone are testimony of this mobile past. In automotive, however, the JLR announcement marks the end of the old era of just selling maps to car OEMs for almost 30 years and heralds a new era of HERE providing end-to-end navigation and connected car platforms to the car industry, with the HERE Auto companion application as a firm reminder of HERE’s mobile legacy and consumer DNA.
How does HERE standout in this rather competitive connected car platform space? It is positioned as the Google alternative, differentiating its offer through a combination of quality, hardware and software agnosticism, global availability, hybrid cloud-based approach, end-to-end guidance combining deep in-vehicle integration with smartphone use cases, and, most importantly for car OEMs, high levels of customization. Moreover, it provides a platform that can be built upon as in-car consumer navigation evolves to more advanced forms of ADAS-based guidance and ultimately autonomous driving. It is this very perspective that sets HERE apart from many other embedded solutions, and most definitely from smartphone integration approaches such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which have very little scope beyond the most basic consumer-grade turn-by-turn navigation.
HERE’s Future Lies beyond Infotainment
COMMENTARY
While navigation is traditionally catalogued under the “(connected) automotive infotainment” category, the future of HERE is firmly linked to more advanced forms of deeply embedded, smart, and safe guidance in a networked future of autonomous and driverless vehicles. To this end, HERE plans to expand its portfolio across three major dimensions:
Smart Guidance: HERE Auto portfolio
Intelligent Car: HD Maps and Humanized Driving based on real-time mapping and big data through ADAS and other sensor data capture and cognitive capabilities including computationally intensive prediction, contextualization, and automation
Digital Transportation Infrastructure (DTI): Smart mobility via networking vehicles (V2IV) and infrastructure (V2I) through a partnership with Nokia Networks on low-latency Liquid Apps through local basestation topologies, demonstrating how synergies within the Nokia group can be leveraged and turned into a unique proposition
Other research areas include iconic everyday guidance, maps as an interface, multiple in-car screen approaches, Electronic Horizon, Location Cast, and advanced mobile integration. HERE also has strong ambitions to become the default location platform provider and content aggregator for an automotive industry that desperately needs to bundle forces. With an automotive industry increasingly growing suspicious of Google, and more recently also Apple, the future of HERE looks decidedly bright.
However, according to an article recently published by BloombergBusiness Nokia considered selling HERE possibly to Uber, equity firms, or even car makers. A divesture of HERE was already postulated by ABI Research in a May 2014 insight HERE Starts It's New Life: “However, skeptics will say there are no synergies between HERE and Nokia’s mobile networking business and that making HERE an independent Nokia company is just a first step in preparing to load it off.” This would dramatically change HERE’s position in the market, especially if it would fall in the hands of a car manufacturer losing its independent position in the market and its (potential) role as content aggregator for the entire automotive industry.
On the other hand, high accuracy maps are increasingly seen as a critical component of autonomous driving technology, which allows the car OEM to take control of HERE and establish a competitive advantage in the driverless vehicle era. Undoubtedly, Nokia is aware of this, and has judged this to be the right time to cash in on HERE, recouping part of the US$8.1 billion paid for NAVTEQ back in 2008. After years of maps and navigation makers languishing in the shadow, all of a sudden they are hunting game again, Uber already having taken control of deCarta.
Are we going to see another round of acquisitions, similar to what happened 2007 / 2008? TomTom surely must be following these developments with great interest!