According to research by the UK Department of Transport, an exciting period of progress is expected for in-car technologies. The rate of adoption of new technologies in cars is set to grow considerably within the next few years. So, while cars were considered dark islands of communication until not so long ago, they are now evolving into voice and data connectivity hubs.

The industrial value of connectivity in the automotive sector currently stands at 18 billion dollars per year but will grow to 39 billion dollars within 4 years, according to forecasts by Gsma Research – a consortium of providers and telecommunications companies – with vehicles capable of incorporating cloud computing, wireless and GPS. According to a report by Telefónica, the number of vehicles equipped with built-in connectivity will grow from the current 10% of the global market to a remarkable 90% as early as 2020.

The potential of these systems is well summarised by Ben Rossi of Information Age:

Imagine your car is fully connected to the internet. It could offer different routes in the event of heavy traffic, give you notifications on cruising speed and advice on your driving style, help you find parking and connect with your smartphone to play your favourite music, with an increasingly precise voice recognition capability. Not to mention the fact that ambulances could travel roads more easily, even sending all the patient data they are carrying to hospital in advance.

There are already start-ups that offer companies the ability to monitor their car fleet, the maintenance status of vehicles, the safety of their driving, efficiency and fuel savings through the choice of the best routes.

This year the Application Developers Alliance identified five areas – home, automotive, shopping, industrial manufacturing, wearable devices – that will be most influenced by the development of the Internet of Things. In the white paper Automotive as a Microcosm of IoT, which brings together numerous interviews with industry leaders to identify the ways in which apps will be developed in the near future, these are the areas of activity with the greatest potential: – running apps in the vehicle's internal infotainment system – connecting the car even more closely with the smartphone – accessing the vehicle remotely – allowing mechanics access to data via an on board diagnostics port.

Liz Kerton, director of Autotech Council, states:

Standardising interfaces and minimising the time the driver takes their eyes off the road are becoming two new priorities, as car connectivity increases. There is a growing need to foster dialogue between entrepreneurs, developers and suppliers. Users can already unlock their cars, check battery status, find where they are parked, and activate the air conditioning remotely, but this is only the beginning.

While our car communicates with our phone, shares the route we are taking with friends and streams the latest Coldplay album, it will at the same time be collecting and distributing a wealth of information useful to manufacturers and other drivers. Even today, cars are equipped with sensors and terminals capable of detecting road conditions, temperature, rain, and the distance to other cars and objects. Tomorrow, this information will be transmitted to help map the reality around us. And, we hope, to improve it.