Europeans leading the way

IT WILL be remembered as the year of European cars in Detroit this year, led by Mercedes, Audi, Volvo and BMW, most eyes and minds – between dribbling over the different concept cars – were seeking out and taking in all the advances in technology that are soon to become part of our lives, seeing that the autonomous car is now the technological objective of all manufacturers.

BMW being one of the major exhibits of interest, found itself answering a deluge of questions in relation to the innovative BMW ConnectedDrive services. As with all future products earmarked for release, Answers to specific questions tended to be as clear as mud! However, they did say, “The BMW Group is constantly working to develop pioneering digital services which will expand vehicle connectivity. The BMW Labs portal, – which went online January 19 – will give customers the chance to test in advance new services still under development and therefore play an active role in helping to shape the future of BMW ConnectedDrive services.”

They also went on to add, “BMW Labs enables customised functions via IFTTT. The first ConnectedDrive option to be made available via BMW Labs is the integration of the IFTTT service into BMW vehicles. IFTTT is a free-of-charge service which allows hundreds of web applications and intelligent devices on the Internet of Things to be linked together.”