The new Toyota cars will load the data on Amazon AWS to help create customized insurance premiums based on driver behavior
Toyota has expanded its collaboration with Amazon Web Services: many of the models of the Japanese house (with a passion for the future) will upload vehicle performance data to the cloud. Drivers and owners of corporate fleets will get intelligent and fully personalized car insurance.
What will we tell companies about our guide? And what will we get in return?
Toyota already runs one “mobility service platform” which, in his view, helps “develop, deploy and manage the next generation of data-driven mobility services for the safety, security, comfort and convenience of drivers and passengers.”
This data comes from a device that Toyota is putting in many models in Japan, the US and China. It is called “Data Communication Module” (DCM).
A mass of information that could turn into new contextual services. Car sharing, rideshare, rental, new services for businesses and consumers such as proactive vehicle maintenance notifications.
And the last, perhaps the most complete and interesting: intelligent car insurance, capable of updating almost in real time and completely tailored around driving behaviour.
Real-time smart car insurance
The fields of application are enormous. Far from being a simple "black box" like those that accompany the most advanced insurance offers, this system would really know everything about a driver. I'm talking about parameters that were unthinkable until recently. Ability to stay on track, reaction times, average safety distance kept compared to other vehicles, times of car use, ability to keep a curve. Good behavior will not help.
In the short term, an AI will know exactly what kind of driver we are, and what statistical chance we have of causing accidents. It could even become predictive, sending us an alert like “You have been behaving in Y ways for X months. Your probability of having an accident is 55% higher. Reduce habit Z*.
Clearly, this deep knowledge of the driver allows a company to be on the safe side, reducing prices by more than 50%.
Smart car insurance: an ambitious project, anyway
This may be why Toyota has signed a contract with Amazon AWS that includes not only cloud technology, but also professional services.
The two companies say their joint efforts “will help build a foundation for simplified and secure data sharing across the enterprise and accelerate its move to CASE (Connected, Autonomous/Automated, Shared and Electric) mobility technologies )”.
There is an aura of mystery
Neither party has specified which parts of the Amazon AWS cloud Toyota will employ, but it seems reasonable to suggest that the automaker will need a lot of storage and analytics capacity, making Amazon AWS S0 and Kinesis infrastructures likely candidates for use.
Whatever Toyota uses, let's prepare to think about privacy because, while cheaper car insurance sounds lovely, having an insurance source that has all of an auto manufacturer's records has many potential pitfalls.
