Mitsubishi Motors: Fueling customer engagement with the connected car
About Mitsubishi Motors
Mitsubishi Motors, a member of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, is one of the world’s largest and most recognizable automotive brands.
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About Aeris Communications
Aeris Communications offers an end-to-end IoT software suite to help manufacturers develop and deploy world-class connected vehicle programs—globally and at scale.
Google Cloud and Aeris Communications are helping Mitsubishi Motors solve for connectivity and software development challenges associated with the connected car.
Google Cloud results
- Reduces backend cloud computing costs by 50% through consolidated infrastructure solution
- Extends customer relationship life cycle beyond the vehicle purchase
- Enables higher use of IoT across the fleet
Increases service revenues by 20 percent
The connected car is a new trend being embraced by more and more consumers. Now more than ever, people want many of the modern digital conveniences found in their homes to be readily accessible and integrated into their vehicles.
The convenience of service scheduling reminders and alerts that a vehicle’s windows were accidentally left open, combined with enhanced entertainment and navigation, adds to a truly personalized driving experience in connected cars. As younger generations become the largest population of car owners, these features are now a major selling point.
Automotive manufacturers have responded by adding more connected cars to their fleets and focusing on innovation to boost connectivity, entertainment, and safety. Since automobile manufacturers are clearly much more experienced building cars than dealing with software, support is often needed to get the applications they want out to drivers.
“Consumers don’t typically know what ‘telematics’ means but they definitely get the convenience of the Internet of Things,” says Bryan Arnett, Director of Digital Product Strategy at Mitsubishi Motors R&D. “They want capabilities like remote engine start, navigation, digital engine health checks, and more, and that demand is only increasing as digital services become the norm in everyday life.”
Mitsubishi Motors has vast experience manufacturing vehicles but sought out assistance to make its in-car digital experiences meet the same high standards that drivers expect from its vehicles. The company engaged Google Cloud partner Aeris Communications to help them take driver experiences in connected cars to new levels. Aeris, an IoT expert and software provider, chose to build and run Mitsubishi’s program in Google Cloud.
Transforming the development process
OEMs across industries have had to dramatically shift their approach to product development. For automotive manufacturers like Mitsubishi, this means incorporating an entirely new development pipeline to address software engineering for its telematics technologies.
This includes the software in the vehicle, as well as the apps that allow drivers to take full advantage of the features when they are driving or in their office or home. Like any other app, OEMs need to leverage CI/CD to boost adoption of and engagement with their connected car software.
“Many automotive manufacturers take a linear, conservative approach to designing their cars,” says Bryan. “But software development is more nonlinear, always changing and requiring constant improvements even after a car leaves the lot. The worlds are very different, and that’s why our partnership with Aeris is so critical.”
Aeris Communications has 20 years of experience helping OEMs capitalize on the potential that IoT has to offer. Through the Aeris Mobility Suite, Aeris provides car companies with all of the software needed to build and monetize an advanced connected vehicle program—from connectivity to application.
“We specialize in helping companies take an unconnected product and turn it into a connected service, which can fundamentally change their business models,” says Drew Johnson, VP of Engineering and Operations at Aeris Communications. “Once that change has been made, these companies benefit from a virtuous cycle of connectivity—they’re engaging with customers, learning how their products are used, and then leveraging those insights to improve the entire customer experience.”
“Migrating to Google Cloud has improved the speed, security, and agility our customers enjoy from our solutions. In the same way that we unburden manufacturers like Mitsubishi from software development and connectivity demands, Google Cloud has removed a lot of the challenges we faced when using other cloud providers.”
—Drew Johnson, VP Engineering & Operations, Aeris CommunicationsAeris took a cloud-first approach to technology provisioning since 2012. As the IoT adoption intensified, it decided to migrate to Google Cloud. Solutions including Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud Load Balancing, Cloud Storage, and other scalable solutions act as a strong foundation for the Aeris Mobility Suite.
The company more recently started to explore analytics and platform services through Google Cloud including Dataflow, BigQuery, and Pub/Sub. The Aeris Mobility Suite combines the availability and connectivity of powerful Google Cloud compute and networking solutions with powerful analytics to give automotive manufacturers everything they need for a connected car.
“Migrating to Google Cloud has improved the speed, security, and agility our customers enjoy from our solutions,” says Drew. “In the same way that we unburden manufacturers like Mitsubishi from software development and connectivity demands, Google Cloud has removed a lot of the challenges and strains we faced when using other cloud providers.”
The combination of a highly accessible infrastructure, software development expertise, and powerful analytics enables Mitsubishi to provide a truly connected experience to drivers. It also allows the manufacturer to learn more about user preferences in real-time and enhance features accordingly, further driving the process of continuous improvement.
“Thanks to Aeris and Google Cloud, we are seeing a 20 percent lift in our service revenues among connected customers compared to nonconnected. ”
—Bryan Arnett, Director of Digital Product Strategy, Mitsubishi Motors R&DImproved efficiency, better engagement
Aeris realized savings of more than 50% after it migrated to Google Cloud. It is also capitalizing on the ecosystem of Google Cloud solutions to further improve its platform for customers. The combination of sophisticated analytics and platform management tools along with effective governance and security enables Mitsubishi to get the most out of the connected car.
Mitsubishi Motors can now maintain an active relationship with customers long after they buy a vehicle. The Aeris Mobility Suite communicates with internal CRM solutions to distribute notifications such as discounts to customers when they are in need of an oil change or reminders that they are due for service.
BigQuery is the highly scalable data warehouse that Aeris needs to capture diagnostic and other information from vehicles, while Cloud Pub/Sub and Cloud Dataflow offer real-time, actionable customer insights. The result is a marked rise in customer engagement—and dealership profits—when comparing connected customers to people driving more traditional vehicles. “The majority of dealer revenues come from services, rather than pure car sales,” says Bryan. “Thanks to Aeris and Google Cloud, we are seeing a 20 percent lift in our service revenues among connected customers compared to nonconnected.”
“Technologies from Aeris and Google Cloud enable us to continue innovating with a keen eye on customer needs. That is invaluable when trying to stand out in the automotive industry.”
—Bryan Arnett, Director of Digital Product Strategy, Mitsubishi Motors R&DAccelerating telematics across the fleet
Overhauling an entire fleet with brand-new technology takes time and expertise. Mitsubishi first incorporated IoT technologies into its Eclipse Cross vehicle. The manufacturer is gradually connecting various models and hopes to achieve 100 percent penetration of connectivity across its entire fleet by 2024.
The Eclipse Cross offers safety features like voice control to allow toggling through music, navigation, and communications features, with minimal distraction, while the Mitsubishi Connect app always keeps the driver connected to the car through smartphone access. Given the success of this rollout, as well as constantly evolving consumer demands, the manufacturer is also looking to continuously improve its connected car features.
“Our efforts to increase the number of connected vehicles in our fleet are critical drivers of the shift toward electric cars and even autonomous ones,” says Bryan. “Technologies from Aeris and Google Cloud enable us to continue innovating with a keen eye on customer needs. That is invaluable when trying to stand out in the automotive industry.”
Mitsubishi intends to continue working with Aeris on its rollout of more connected cars to new regions, as Aeris provides essential global connectivity and accessibility using Google Cloud infrastructure. Timely, accurate data capture and analysis will remain a priority at all stages.
“The data we get from connected cars already benefits customers, and it will ultimately benefit smart cities as well,” says Bryan. “Once we have a fully connected fleet, we can bring in new business models, ML/AI, and other innovations to dramatically innovate hardware and software at scale.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Mitsubishi Motors
Mitsubishi Motors, a member of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, is one of the world’s largest and most recognizable automotive brands.
About Aeris Communications
Aeris Communications offers an end-to-end IoT software suite to help manufacturers develop and deploy world-class connected vehicle programs—globally and at scale.