Mitsubishi offers you a Coffee for your Data

Mitsubishi offers small incentives for drivers to disclose their data.
While the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been established in Europe and a corresponding data protection law has been ratified in the US state of California, Japanese OEM Mitsubishi is taking a new approach to gather data from its customers. If drivers make their data accessible, they are granted minor incentives.

Mitsubishi has launched an app that can be downloaded for free. Next you can connect your smartphone with your car – the phone’s internal sensors record data such as acceleration speed and navigation targets.
If you follow the traffic rules and drive carefully, you can collect bonus points to be exchanged for repair or spare parts discounts. The bonuses have a value of approximately ten US dollars. Further the driver will receive a free coffee if he managed to collect enough points.

But is this really a good deal for the driver? Probably not, as Mitsubishi collects the data to the insurance industry for a higher price. The information provided serves the insurance companies to adjust their rates for drivers – it’s rather doubtful that the data will be made anonymous.
According to a McKinsey study the global revenue pool from vehicle data monetization might add up to USD 450 - 750 billion by 2030. In 2016 Nissan already announced that the after-sales market is particularly interesting for the automotive industry as the manufacturers’ profit margins are quite low.
In 2017, Waymo CEO John Krafcik calculated that the car manufacturers’ average profit margin per vehicle sold, taking into account average miles of usage before a car is scrapped, is only about one cent per mile. Therefore, we can expect more automotive companies to deal with data monetization in the future.

David Fluhr is journalist and owner of the digital magazine “Autonomes Fahren & Co”. He is reporting regularly about trends and technologies in the fields Autonomous Driving, HMI, Telematics and Robotics. Link to his site: http://www.autonomes-fahren.de